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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

Singer’

Workplace Stress

Relaunched: 13 April 2020 The workplace is commonly acknowledged as one of the most stressful environments most of us have to deal with. Yet, ironically, stress is one of the most common causes of absenteeism from the workplace. According to a 2019 Business in the Community report, 61% of employees have experienced a mental health problem due to work and one in 3 have been formally diagnosed with a mental health issue. So what actors affect occupational stress  and how? Noise in the Environment Many workplaces, particularly in construction and manufacturing, are noisy – often to an unsafe level, requiring ear defenders. But even an open plan office can be noisy. David Glass, Jerome Singer & Lucy Friedman (1969) carried out an investigation in which participants had to carry out tasks under 5 conditions:- loud noises at random soft noises at random loud noises at fixed intervals soft noises at fixed intervals no noise What the researchers found was that the participants performed best under the no noise condition and worst for random loud noises – showing how disruptive unpredictable noise can be. Paul Bell et al (1990) have linked higher noise levels in factories to hypertension, headaches, stomach and intestinal disorders.… Read More

What is Romantic Love? #2

PART 2 Women and genes If resources are one key element women want from a relationship, what about the other key element: ‘good genes’? The female’s drive to acquire ‘good genes’ in the making of her children is a critical driver in Sexual Selection (Darwin, 1871). Traits in the male which are seen as attractive to the female and thus will aid the male’s chances of mating and thus passing on his genes are considered ‘sexually selected’. The more men have these traits, the more they are considered desirable by women. After all, when the woman puts a minimum of 6 years into having a child, it’s important the children she produces are ‘attractive’ and thus have an increased likelihood of being able to pass on their genes in the competitive environment of human reproduction. According to Ronad A Fisher’s (1930) Sexy Sons Hypothesis (aka Runaway Process), traits which one generation of females find attractive are also likely to be attractive to the next generation – hence the universals of attractiveness discussed on the previous page.  Therefore, if her sons inherit the traits that attracted her, the mother’s genes are more likely to be passed on because the sons from such a mating… Read More

Separation, Deprivation & Privation #4

PART 4 Romanian Orphan Studies Much of the Western world went through a GREEN-tinged liberalisation of cultural norms during from the 1960s onwards. One outcome of this was the increasing acceptance of couples living together without being married and of children being born out of wedlock. The result was that far fewer babies and young children ended up in orphanages and similar institutions. Those that did were cared for much better and much more holistically, with much more attention paid to their psychological and emotional well-being. This was very much a consequence of psychological  research into the damaging effects of institutionalisation in preceding decades. Cleo Dontas et al (1985) provide a good example of a Greek orphanage where each baby was allocated a member of staff to care specifically for them and form an attachment. 15 babies, aged 7 to 9 months, were observed in the 2-week adjustment period of adoption and were found to be forming good attachments with their new adoptive parents – perhaps reflecting J0hn Bowlby’s (1953) Continuity Hypothesis of a good internal working model. However, such progress meant there was little opportunity for a new generation of developmental psychologists to replicate the kinds of studies René Spitz (1945) and… Read More

Cuba on the Cusp…?

10 days in Cuba in the first half of January was an astonishing experience. A ‘special’ holiday to celebrate wife Caroline’s 60th, there was little of the ‘Winter sun’ we had been led to anticipate. Rather, near-hurricane level winds and torrential rain lasted several days, with sun, cloud and lighter rain alternating for the rest. If the weather wasn’t enough of an experience in itself, then Cuban music, art, architecture and the people themselves left indelible impressions. The music is, of course, fabulous…seemingly a well-schooled salsa and/or rumba band on every street corner in Habana (aka Havana) and a stunning concert by a version of the world-famous Buena Vista Social Club in Varadero on our last night. In contrast to the agonised grimaces of many American and British musicians, their Cuban counterparts seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves and communicate that to their audiences. (There is plenty of healthy RED expressed in the way Cuban musicians so enjoy playing and PURPLE both in that musicians love to be in a band and the affection for their musical traditions.) The art is wonderfully expressive and the architecture awesome, even when it’s dilapidated. As for the people…. Cuba, is, of course, a victim… Read More

Selfplex

Updated: 19 December 2016 ‘Selfplex’ is the term used by Susan Blackmore (1999) to depict ‘self’ effectively as the key confluence of schemas – ‘the ultimate memeplex‘ – which provides the concept of ‘I’, the cognitive awareness of who I am, how I think, what I feel, what I believe…why I am the way I am. Someone’s sense of identity or identities. The term ‘ego’ is widely used in Psychology and the other behavioural sciences as a cipher for ‘self’. It has even entered mainstream popular language in usages such as: “That’s egocentric” or “He’s got a lot of ego”. The very diversity of usages makes it too vague to use as a term for ‘self-concept’ – though it is often used in that context – which is why ‘selfplex’ is preferable. Sigmund Freud (1923b) used ‘Ego’ in a very specific yet cohesive sense. It is a force which attempts to balance the motivations of the Id and the Superego where they compete for dominance and restrains the more socially-unacceptable demands of the Id. This latter function can be seen in the way the PURPLE vMEME submits to the family or group to gain acceptance. Yet Freud also perceived the Ego as… Read More

Bibliography S

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 Sabbioni, M E E (1991): ‘Cancer and Stress: a Possible Role for Psychoneuroimmunology in Cancer Research?’ in Cary Cooper & Maggie Watson (eds): ‘Cancer and Stress: Psychological, Biological and Coping Studies’ (Wiley, Chichester) Sachs, Jeffrey (2005): ‘Why Aid does work’ (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4210122.stm (Accessed: 01/01/17) Sachs, Jeffrey (2011): ‘Stop this Race to the Bottom on Corporation Tax’ in Financial Times (28 March) Sachs, Wolfgang, Reinhard Loske & Manfred Linz (1998): ‘Greening the North: a Post-Industrial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity’ (Zed Books, London) Saggar, Shammit & Joanna Drean (2001): ‘British Public Attitudes and Ethnic Minorities’ (Performance & Innovation Unit, Cabinet Office, London) Sagi, Abraham, Marinus Van Ijzendoorn, Ora Aviezer, Frank Donnell & Ofra Mayseless (1994): ‘Sleeping out of home in a Kibbutz Communal Arrangement: It makes a Difference for Infant-Mother Attachment’ in Child Development 65/4 Sagi, Abraham, Marinus Van IJzendoorn & Nina Koren-Karie (1991): ‘Primary Appraisal of the Strange Situation: a Cross-Cultural Analysis of Preseparation Episodes’ in  Developmental Psychology 27/4 Sahlins, Marshall (1997): ‘The Original Affluent Society’ in Majid Rahnema, Victoria Bawtree (eds): ‘The Post Development Reader’… Read More

Bibliography G

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 Gaertner, Samuel, John Dovidio, P A Anastasio, B A Bachman & M C Rust (1993): ‘The Common In-group Identity Model: Recategorisation and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias’ in Wolfgang Stroebe & Miles Hewstone (eds): ‘European Review of Social Psychology Vol 4’ (Fourth Edition, Wiley New York NY) Galeano, Eduardo (1971; translated by Cedric Belfrage, 1973): ‘Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent’ (Monthly Press Review, New York NY) Galen, Claudius (translated by G Helmreich, 1878): ‘Galeni de Elementis ex Hippocrates Libri Il’ [‘On the Elements according to Hippocrates’] [Deichert, Erlangen) Gall, Carlotta & Thomas de Waal (1997): ‘Chechnya: A Small Victorious War’ (Pan, London) Galtung, Johan & Marie Holmboe Ruge (1970): ‘The Structure of Foreign News’ in Jeremy Tunstall: ‘Media Sociology: a Reader’ (Constable, London) Gamson, William, Bruce Fireman & Steven Rytina (1982): ‘Encounters with Unjust Authority’ (Dorsey Press, Homewood IL) Gana, Kamel, Yaël Saada & Aurélie Untas (2013): ‘Effects of Love Styles on Marital Satisfaction in Heterosexual Couples: a Dyadic Approach’ in Marriage & Family Review #49 Garcia, John, Frank Ervin & Robert Koelling… Read More

Meta-States & the Cognitive Triad

Updated: 7 July 2021 The Meta-States model of L Michael Hall (1995) and the Cognitive Psychology concepts of Cognitive Labelling Theory and the Cognitive Triad naturally complement each other in providing insight and understanding as to how beliefs and belief structures are formed. However, the models do need to be linked to provide the fuller picture. The linking mechanism is provided by the vMEMES of the Gravesian approach. For some people, their temperamental Dimensions of Temperament may also be of importance. When he first publicised the Meta-States concept in 1994, Michael Hall pretty much took the world of NLP by storm. Meta-stating, more than anything before that had gone before, provided a structure for understanding how belief systems built up – either positively or negatively. In the Meta-States concept, we take in information from our 5 senses. This produces a ‘primary state’. Most people then apply meaning to the primary state – they interpret what that means – producing a first level meta-state. Carl Gustav Jung (1921) called people who don’t apply an interpretation ‘sensors’; those who interpret – most people! -are ‘intuitors’. The process of interpretation (or meta-stating) of the primary state to produce the first level meta-state is best understood through the… Read More