Seminal Truth: A Modern Science of Male Celibacy in North India

Many scholars have noted that brahmacharya (celibacy) is an important concept in Hindu notions of male identity (cf. Kakar 1981, 1982, 1990; Obeyesekere 1976, 1981; for comparison, see Gilmore 1990). Although the psychological basis of this concept has been studied, there is very little in the literature on the "medical mechanics" of being and becoming a brahmachari. Nor is there a comprehensive account of the precise relationship between sex and the meaning of physical health in modern urban India. Through an examination of the popular Hindi literature on brahmacharya, interpreted within the context of therapeutic celibacy as put in practice by a modern yoga society, this article shows how a discourse about sex, semen, and health is conceived of in terms of embodied truth. Using Foucaulfs critique of Western sexuality as a contrasting frame of reference, I argue that the "truth" about sex in modern North India is worked out in somatic rather than psychological terms, in which morality is problematically defined by male physiology and gendered conceptions of good health, [celibacy, sex, yoga, health, semen, identity, North India]     

The Concept of Internal Position

This article analyzes a concept that has become central to L.I. Bozhovich's theory of personality. Three aspects of internal position are identified (affective, motivational, and reflective), the methodological and general psychological significance of this concept is explained, and contemporary research into the internal position of school-aged children is summarized, including research conducted under the direction of the author. The possibilities afforded by further study of internal position during ontogeny are noted.     

Interactional Psychology: Some Implications for Psychological Anthropology

Recent developments in psychology are bringing about a rapprochement between behaviorists, trait psychologists, and psychodynamically oriented theorists. The incipient perspective, which has been labeled "interactional psychology," focuses on persons-in-situations and raises some penetrating questions for psychological anthropology. Attempts by interactionists to reconcile traditional concepts of "personality" with evidence demonstrating the power of situations to pattern behavior are discussed. It is proposed that the interactionist framework fits well with recent trends in anthropology that emphasize the contextualization of behavior and an interest in intracultural diversity, [psychological anthropology, personality, situation, ecology of behavior]     

Japan’s Hidden Youths: Mainstreaming the Emotionally Distressed in Japan

One of the most talked-about social issues in Japan in recent years has been the problem of the nation's purportedly one million "hidden" youths, known as hikikomori (literally, "the withdrawn"). Most observers agree that the category of hikikomori encompasses a wide range of problems and provocations. The fact that these various dilemmas lead to the shared outcome of shutting oneself away at home is the point of departure here. The article explores the spheres of mental health care, education and family, focusing on the reluctance to highlight underlying psychological dimensions of hikikomori and the desire on the part of schools and families to "mainstream" Japanese children, accommodating as many as possible within standardized public education. Hikikomori can perhaps be seen as a manifestation of Japanese democracy, in which the good society is imagined as cohesive, protective and secure, rather than one in which the individual can freely exercise the right to be different. Schools, families and the sphere of mental health care have focused on producing social inclusion but have discouraged citizens from being labeled as "different" -- even when such a distinction might help them. The dearth of facilities and discourse for caring for the mentally ill or learning disabled is, in many respects, the darker side of Japan's successes. Those who cannot adjust are cared for through the institutions of families, companies and various other spheres that offer spaces to rest and to temporarily "drop out"; however, the expectation is that rest will eventually lead to a re-entry into mainstream society. Often the psychological problem or disability that led to the problem goes unnamed and untreated (hikikomori, psychiatry, special education, youth, family, Japan).     

"The Key to Human Psychology"

This article investigates the notebook kept by Lev Vygotsky during the first half of 1926. In addition to discussing the notebook's structure, content, and time frame, the article analyzes its significance within the context of the development of Vygotsky's ideas. Among the notebook's content discussed here are: supplementary material to The Psychology of Art; a preliminary outline for "The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology"; the first propositions of cultural-historical theory associated with the idea of sign mediation; an outline for the unwritten monograph "Zoon politikon"; as well as thoughts on a general psychological theory of consciousness that assigns a key role to speech and communication in the genesis of consciousness. Particular attention is paid to Vygotsky's remarks on the ontological status of mental reality and the problem of the psychophysical.     

The Psychology of Labor Education: Some Major Issues

Soviet psychologists have done a good deal of research on some of the problematic aspects of the labor education of our young people. E. A. Klimov, K, K. Platonov, V. V. Chebysheva, and others have done general studies of career choice among school students. The following projects also warrant special mention: on the circumstances that foster a positive attitude toward work in instructional workshops and student production teams (L. V. Blagonadyozhina, M. A. Khomutova, F. I. Ivash-chenko, and others); on the role work activity plays in shaping a child's personality and helping to develop his moral and volitional qualities and his overall activity level (T. I. Agafonov, V. E. Gurin, V. I. Selivanov, D. I. Fel'dshtein, and others); on the motives that underlie work activity and career choice in school students (K. E. Drozdova, V. I. Zhukovskaya, and others); on the psychological mechanisms that are relevant to constructive career guidance for students in the upper grades (N. I. Krylov, I. V. Mikhailov, and others); on the development of a technical mind-set in school students (E. A. Faraponova et al.) In addition, researchers in the Psychology Faculty of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute in Minsk are currently involved in a program to investigate the influence the school student's self-appraisal and expectations of productive work exert upon his personality development. Yet, for all this, as the press has frequently pointed out, the scope and spirit of research on psychological aspects of labor education are still far from satisfactory in the light of contemporary needs. Psychologists are too often absent when attempts are made to set the content and form of labor education onto a rigorously scientific foundation and to ascertain the most educationally valid types of work for a child of a given age. The psychological underpinnings of career guidance have also received an inadequate share of scholarly attention.     

Ways of Investigating Motivation for Learning in Schoolchildren

The tasks of universal education in our country and the cultivation of an active, comprehensively developed personality in the young people of communist society call for further studies of the possibilities of mobilizing the "human factor," the reserves of mental development, in schoolchildren. The new tasks confronting contemporary education (not just to increase pupils' knowledge quantitatively but also to teach them ways to acquire that knowledge independently [1]) and the practical problems of classroom instruction (overburdening of pupils in some subjects, diminished interest in school at certain periods, e.g., at the transition from primary to secondary school) necessitate psychological study of ways to stimulate the activity of schoolchildren and to cultivate in them an active, internalized interest in schoolwork.     

Distributive Models of Culture: A Sapirian Alternative to Essentialism

The Boasian conception of culture has been roundly criticized in recent years for its essentialist, or even racist, implications. Yet an alternative model that avoids these implications was proposed in the 1930s by Boas student Edward Sapir. Having long survived on the margins of anthropological theory, Sapir's "distributive" concept of culture is now entering the theoretical mainstream through recent developments in both psychological and "postmodernist" anthropology.
By emphasizing the full range of variation within any so-called culture, anthropologists have begun to apply the same style of population thinking that helped launch the Darwinian revolution in biology.     

Psyche,soma, and society: the social construction of psychosomatic disorders

This pilot-study examines the self-perceptions, and explanatory models, of 42 patients with either respiratory or gastrointestinal psychosomatic disorders. For several reasons, these disorders comprise an anomalous category within the biomedical model. It is suggested that clinicians explain their chronic, unpredictable course by psychologization - — shifting responsibility for etiology, exacerbations or therapeutic failure to patients emotions, personality, or lifestyle. Evidence is presented that psychologization is socially constructed, in clinical encounters over time. Patients respond to this process by reifying pathogenic emotions, personality traits, or malfunctioning body parts, and thus separating them from an idealized concept of the social self. It is also suggested that patients with gastrointestinal or respiratory conditions differ in their self-perceptions and explanatory models: a proportion of patients in each group organize their experiences around a central natural symbol — respiration or digestion/excretion. These 2 images link physiological experiences to concepts of pathogenic emotions or personality, physical weakness, and types of social relationships.     

Contesting the Politics of Culture, Rewriting the Boundaries of Inclusion: Working for Social Justice with Muslim and Arab Communities

This article calls on anthropologists of education to assert a more public voice attacking the ideological purposes to which the concept of "culture" has been deployed following the September 11 attacks. We must support schools, communities, and the media to address the power and politics of race and religion in contemporary social and political contexts, rather than focus primarily on multicultural education about Islamic and Arab "culture." Finally, this article urges us to expand our knowledge of the processes of social incorporation for Muslim and Arab immigrant youth to include a deeper understanding of how global politics contribute to young people's sense of emerging identities.     

The influence of aesthetic surgery on the profile of emotion

In the clinical practise it has been observed that the person changes physically, too, after aesthetic surgery. The aim of this work was to examine, by objective psychological measurements, what changes occur, and what personality features change. Forty six subjects that had an aesthetic surgery were examined; they were tested before, and eighteen month after the surgery by the Profile Index of Emotion (PIE). Before the re-testing the subjects were analyzed by "The Life Events Scale" to exclude the possibility of the influence of new life events on the results of the re-test. The control group of 29 volunteers was tested by the same psychological instruments. The control group never verbalized the wish for an aesthetic surgery; they were never in psychiatric treatment, and the corresponded to the experimental group in the age, sex and education level. Analysis of the data obtained from PIE test before and after the operation shows a statistical significant increase of the adaptability segments and an improvement of capacity for taking and giving. Emotional conflict does not disappear, but a new balance is established, satisfaction is higher, and the identity is more integrated.     

支气管哮喘患者心理特征研究进展

支气管哮喘是全球范围内影响巨大的慢性气道炎症性呼吸道疾病,近年来随着空气污染的加剧和吸烟人数的增多,其发病率呈逐年上升的趋势,引起医学界越来越多的关注。支气管哮喘是由遗传因素、生物因素、心理因素等多种发病因素综合影响所致,随着研究的深入,有关心理因素对支气管哮喘的作用取得了重大的进展,其中支气管哮喘患者存在明显的人格特征和情绪障碍,并且患者特有的人格特征以及情绪障碍会对患者的病情和生活质量产生一定的影响。鉴于此,本文就支气管哮喘患者的性格特征、情绪特征以及其对疾病的影响进行简要阐述,以供临床参考。     

Terrorism in Native America: Interrogating the Past, Examining the Present, and Constructing a Liberatory Future

Drawing on Critical Race Theory, I examine the concept and practice of terrorism as it has been imposed on Native Americans by the United States government and its agents, and provide two concrete examples of terrorism. For anthropologists, this article amplifies the "voice" of the historical Other, describing terrorism from an emic perspective. For educators and educational anthropologists, I argue that we must critically examine issues of power and media portrayals of terrorism and terrorists in order to engage students in liberatory education.     

Psychological Problems in Programmed Instruction

This article presents an overview of the current status of research on programmed instruction in the USSR. In addition to emphasizing the need for psychological research within the context of a programmed instruction project, the author contends that a further analysis of the concept of feedback may be crucial to improvements in this important area of applied psychological research.     

Generalized epilepsy with spike-wave paroxysms as an epileptic disorder of the function of sleep promotion

A new hypothesis is offered regarding the pathomechanism of generalized epilepsy with spike-wave paroxysms (GESw) based on the pertaining literature and personal investigations. The first section is devoted to a critical overview of the development of theories regarding GESw. The centrencephalic theory, the debate on subcortical versus cortical origin, the "corticoreticular" hypothesis of Gloor and, finally, the "dyshormic" concept of Niedermeyer are outlined. In the next section it is shown that there is a particular optimum zone between sleep and wakefulness and between REM and slow wave sleep which highly favours the occurrence of spike-wave paroxysms. According to our investigations into the dynamics within this critical zone, the spike-wave paroxysms always appear with characteristic fluctuations of the level of consciousness where the changes towards awakening are always followed by rebounds towards sleep. Hence, the dynamic properties of this unstable border zone become especially interesting in the genesis of spike-wave paroxysms. It has been shown that even without epilepsy, a dynamics can be observed in the micro-oscillations in the depth of sleep which could be interpreted according to the reciprocal induction regulation model. In our concept the process of falling asleep emerges from rebounds of the sleep promoting system in response to sensory inputs streaming in from the external environment. According to this model, arousal influences in sleep have a sleep promoting effect. We interpret in this way all synchronized EEG reactions elicited by sensory stimuli and we consider K-complex type synchronization reactions as a "building stone" of the process of falling asleep which contains the whole process in concentrated form. The manifold similarities between the K-complex and the spike-wave pattern are demonstrated. On this basis spike-wave paroxysms can be regarded as an epileptic "caricature" of the sleep induction momentum reflected in the K-complex phenomenon. Hence, the GESw is the epileptic disorder of the sleep promotion function. This hypothesis resolves and explains many contradictory features of our knowledge about this mechanism and gives a new biologically oriented framework for further research. In the light of the hypothesis it has been attempted to interpret some of the characteristic features of the GESw: the genetic determination, the age dependency, the link with the sleep-waking cycle as well as the functional-anatomical characteristics and the symptoms of the seizures.     

Who's afraid of the big bad Wolff?: “Wolff's law” and bone functional adaptation

"Wolff's law" is a concept that has sometimes been misrepresented, and frequently misunderstood, in the anthropological literature. Although it was originally formulated in a strict mathematical sense that has since been discredited, the more general concept of "bone functional adaptation" to mechanical loading (a designation that should probably replace "Wolff's law") is supported by much experimental and observational data. Objections raised to earlier studies of bone functional adaptation have largely been addressed by more recent and better-controlled studies. While the bone morphological response to mechanical strains is reduced in adults relative to juveniles, claims that adult morphology reflects only juvenile loadings are greatly exaggerated. Similarly, while there are important genetic influences on bone development and on the nature of bone's response to mechanical loading, variations in loadings themselves are equally if not more important in determining variations in morphology, especially in comparisons between closely related individuals or species. The correspondence between bone strain patterns and bone structure is variable, depending on skeletal location and the general mechanical environment (e.g., distal vs. proximal limb elements, cursorial vs. noncursorial animals), so that mechanical/behavioral inferences based on structure alone should be limited to corresponding skeletal regions and animals with similar basic mechanical designs. Within such comparisons, traditional geometric parameters (such as second moments of area and section moduli) still give the best available estimates of in vivo mechanical competence. Thus, when employed with appropriate caution, these features may be used to reconstruct mechanical loadings and behavioral differences within and between past populations.     

Spatial distribution of growth rates and of epidermal cell lengths in the elongation zone during leaf development in Lolium perenne L.

Relative elemental growth rates (REGR) and lengths of epidermal cells along the elongation zone of Lolium perenne L. leaves were determined at four developmental stages ranging from shortly after emergence of the leaf tip to shortly before cessation of leaf growth. Plants were grown at constant light and temperature. At all developmental stages the length of epidermal cells in the elongation zone of both the blade and sheath increased from 12 m at the leaf base to about 550 m at the distal end of the elongation zone, whereas the length of epidermal cells within the joint region only increased from 12 to 40 m. Throughout the developmental stages elongation was confined to the basal 20 to 30 mm of the leaf with maximum REGR occurring near the center of the elongation zone. Leaf elongation rate (LER) and the spatial distributions of REGR and epidermal cell lengths were steady to a first approximation between emergence of the leaf tip and transition from blade to sheath growth. Elongation of epidermal cells in the sheath started immediately after the onset of elongation of the most proximal blade epidermal cells. During transition from blade to sheath growth the length of the blade and sheath portion of the elongation zone decreased and increased, respectively, with the total length of the elongation zone and the spatial distribution of REGR staying near constant, with exception of the joint region which elongated little during displacement through the elongation zone. Leaf elongation rate decreased rapidly during the phase when only the sheath was growing. This was associated with decreasing REGR and only a small decrease in the length of the elongation zone. Data on the spatial distributions of growth rates and of epidermal cell lengths during blade elongation were used to derive the temporal pattern of epidermal cell elongation. These data demonstrate that the elongation rate of an epidermal cell increased for days and that cessation of epidermal cell elongation was an abrupt event with cell elongation rate declining from maximum to zero within less than 10 h.Abbreviations LER leaf elongation rate - REGR relative elemental growth rates     

Mixed emotional experience is associated with and precedes improvements in psychological well-being

Background

The relationships between positive and negative emotional experience and physical and psychological well-being have been well-documented. The present study examines the prospective positive relationship between concurrent positive and negative emotional experience and psychological well-being in the context of psychotherapy.

Methods

47 adults undergoing psychotherapy completed measures of psychological well-being and wrote private narratives that were coded by trained raters for emotional content.

Results

The specific concurrent experience of happiness and sadness was associated with improvements in psychological well-being above and beyond the impact of the passage of time, personality traits, or the independent effects of happiness and sadness. Changes in mixed emotional experience preceded improvements in well-being.

Conclusions

Experiencing happiness alongside sadness in psychotherapy may be a harbinger of improvement in psychological well-being.     

心理护理在A 型性格上消化道出血患者的应用

目的:探讨心理护理应用于A型性格上消化道出血患者的影响。方法:将A型性格上消化道出血患者68例,随机分为观察组(n=34例)和对照组(n=34例)。观察组为实施心理护理组,对照组为非心理护理组。分别观察两组患者的住院时间、二次出血发生率、病死率等指标。结果:两组患者的临床疗效比较,观察组住院时间、二次出血发生率和病死率均明显少于对照组,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论:心理护理应用于A型性格上消化道出血患者,能够明显较少患者的住院时间,并有效降低了患者二次出血发生率和病死率,其临床效果优于对照组。