Self-Affirmation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoquan Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Health Communication ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
The Self ◽  
Defensive Response ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Message Acceptance

Self-affirmation theory posits that people are motivated to maintain an adequate sense of self-integrity. It further posits that the self-system is highly flexible such that threats to one domain of the self can be better endured if the global sense of self-integrity is protected and reinforced by self-resources in other, unrelated domains. Health and risk communication messages are often threatening to the self because they convey information that highlights inadequacies in one’s health attitudes and behaviors. This tends to lead to defensive response, particularly among high-risk groups to whom the messages are typically targeted and most relevant. However, self-affirmation theory suggests that such defensive reactions can be effectively reduced if people are provided with opportunities to reinforce their sense of self-integrity in unrelated domains. This hypothesis has generated substantial research in the past two decades. Empirical evidence so far has provided relatively consistent support for a positive effect of self-affirmation on message acceptance, intention, and behavior. These findings encourage careful consideration of the theoretical and practical implications of self-affirmation theory in the genesis and reduction of defensive response in health and risk communication. At the same time, important gaps and nuances in the literature should be noted, such as the boundary conditions of the effects of self-affirmation, the lack of clarity in the psychological mechanisms underlying the observed effects, and the fact that self-affirmation can be easily implemented in some health communication contexts, but not in others. Moreover, the research program may also benefit from greater attention to variables and questions of more direct interest to communication researchers, such as the role of varying message attributes and audience characteristics, the potential to integrate self-affirmation theory with health communication theories, and the spontaneous occurrence of positive self-affirmation in natural health communication settings.

Bataille and Deleuze's Peculiar Askesis: Techniques of Transgression, Meditation and Dramatisation

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-228
Author(s):  
Janae Sholtz
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Georges Bataille ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
The Self ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Full Participation

This article explores the ethical imperative to dramatise in the work of Georges Bataille and Gilles Deleuze, two of the most radical thinkers in twentieth-century philosophy, as a peculiar kind of askesis. Whereas askesis is often associated with asceticism or self-denial, in the sense of self-regulation and abstention, Bataille and Deleuze advocate training the self towards intensification of the liminal and extreme (disruption rather than composure), which can rather be understood as a denial of self – its dissolution or laceration. Few attempts have been made to compare their work, even though both share a commitment to resisting the closures that bind our desires and inhibit our full participation in and confrontation with the ebbs and flows of an impersonal, immanent life. Through careful consideration and comparison of their work, I argue that both offer important methods for engendering modalities of ecstatic being characterised by sensitivity to immanence, which have important ramifications for our ability to address phenomena of ethical indifference and resist the constrictions of social control mechanisms that decimate our political imaginations and inhibit our resolve to invent a different future. In the final sections, I interrogate the differences in their invocation of affect and art.

Optative Form in Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-515
Author(s):  
Matthew Sussman
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Anthony Trollope ◽  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Moral Purpose ◽  
Character Space ◽  
Main Determinant ◽  
Structural Principle ◽  
Small House ◽  
And Behavior

Matthew Sussman, “Optative Form in Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington” (pp. 485–515) This essay argues that Anthony Trollope is the preeminent novelist of the optative, a term introduced by Andrew Miller that describes how people sharpen their sense of self through counterfactual speculations about themselves and others. The optative shapes Trollope’s novels in two ways: first, as the main determinant of character psychology and behavior; and second, as a structural principle that governs his handling of the multiplot novel. Through an analysis of The Small House at Allington (1864)—the first of Trollope’s novels in which the plot is fully motivated by psychological characterization—I show how Trollope adopts narrative strategies of fragmentation and development to distribute optative motifs across the character-space, in effect replicating at the level of structure what takes place within individual minds. In this way, Trollope finds formal means for staging the contest between freedom and contingency in the construction of the self, significantly advancing the character-plot debate of the 1860s and deepening the moral purpose of his realism.

scholarly journals Mapping the Self: A network approach for understanding psychological and neural representations of self-concept structure

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Elder ◽  
Ki Man Bernice Man Bernice Cheung;Cheung ◽  
Tyler Davis ◽  
Brent Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
Similarity Relationships ◽  
And Behavior

How people self-reflect and maintain a coherent sense of self is a central question that spans from early philosophy to modern psychology and neuroscience. Neurobiological approaches to self-concept representation have focused on localizing brain structures that are involved in self-reflection, such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). This research has largely approached the self as a unitary construct, without a formal representational theory of how self-perceptions cohere and depend upon one another. We develop a network-based approach, which suggests that the self-concept is represented as a web of interrelated traits. Leveraging this trait network to inform two behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, we show how network features predict positivity and coherence in self-evaluations and activation in brain regions involved in self-referential cognition. Specifically, we find that network-based measures that preserve network stability (i.e. their outdegree centrality) are associated with more favorable and consistent self-evaluations and decreases in mPFC activation. Further, individuals low in self-esteem and high in depressive symptoms are less sensitive to central, stability preserving traits, suggesting that network-defined self-concept coherence may play a role in maintaining positive and consistent self-views. In addition, similarity relationships amongst traits in the network explain both consistency in self-evaluations as well as similar activation patterns in semantic- and self-processing regions. Together, our model and findings present the first computational theory of how individuals holistically represent an interconnected self-concept that joins individual differences, brain activity, and behavior.

Juvenal in the Specular City

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. J. Larmour
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self

Juvenalian satire writes specularity, firstly, by mirroring its own constitutive elements and discursive procedures, and, secondly, through its preoccupation with gazing at others and the self. The roving satirist-narrator, who resembles Kristeva’s ‘deject’ and Poe’s ‘Man of the Crowd’, inhabits the paradoxical space of Maingueneau’s paratopia within the specular city of Rome. As a specular text, Juvenal’s collection strives for coherence through various devices of doubling, repetition, and mirroring (linguistic, rhetorical, and thematic); yet in this cityscape the search for a unified sense of self, and an accompanying topographical wholeness, is continually frustrated, as the satirist—along with us, the spectators accompanying him—is confronted by human and architectural embodiments of ambiguity, transgression, and the pernicious mixing of categories, including Umbricius at the Porta Capena (3.12–20 and 318–22), Otho with his mirror (2.99–109), and Gracchus’ appearance as a retiarius in the arena (2.143–8 and 8.200–10).

scholarly journals Government Communication Strategies during Coronavirus Pandemic: United Arab Emirates Lessons

2021 ◽  
pp. 097206342098309
Author(s):  
Ahmed Farouk Radwan ◽  
Sheren Ali Mousa
Keyword(s):  
Health Communication ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
The State ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Communication Model ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Government Communication

Government communication introduced important lessons during the worldwide experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to apply known efficacious principles of risk and health communication strategies. The purpose of the study is to depict and explore the United Arab Emirates government communication scenario in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic as well as look at the types of strategies, information and messages delivered via digital mediums to handle challenges that are raised based on the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model. The study includes a qualitative analysis of two government bodies’ digital platforms: ‘The Ministry of Health and Prevention’ (mohap) and ‘Crisis and Disasters Management Authority’. Results indicated that the UAE government used different communication aims and strategies to face the pandemic according to the risk management scenario. In the quarantine phase, communication focused on giving people information about the disease, raising awareness about the disease, motivating health and behaviour change, informing people about government decisions and procedures. In the coexistence phase communication focused on emphasising the necessity of adherence the health measures, providing information on re-work in institutions and commercial centres, involving people in the health and social initiatives, confronting non-compliance with health precautions. Government communication also focused on facing rumours and false information. UAE government communication used digital platforms and social media to address more than 200 nationalities living in the state for ensuring that they adhere to the precautionary measures and coordinate with the authorities. Government communication was committed to a set of values including equality between citizens of the state and residents, societal and individual responsibility, recognising the frontline medical staff and acknowledging their sacrifices. UAE implemented an integrated, coherent and effective scenario to deal with the crisis. It developed risk communication strategies in health communication to manage the COVID-19 crisis by following international standards and also took into account its own political, economic, social and cultural features. The UAE government used many strategies to inform and convince people including clarification of measures strategy, reassurance strategy, ambiguity reduction strategy, behaviour efficacy strategy, correcting misinformation and rumours, advising strategy.

scholarly journals Crosstalk between Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy and Neurological Sciences in Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Biomedicines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Lehel Balogh ◽  
Masaru Tanaka ◽  
Nóra Török ◽  
László Vécsei ◽  
Shigeru Taguchi
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Biological Treatment ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Neurological Damage ◽  
Mood And Anxiety Disorders ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

Psychotherapy is a comprehensive biological treatment modifying complex underlying cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and regulatory responses in the brain, leading patients with mental illness to a new interpretation of the sense of self and others. Psychotherapy is an art of science integrated with psychology and/or philosophy. Neurological sciences study the neurological basis of cognition, memory, and behavior as well as the impact of neurological damage and disease on these functions, and their treatment. Both psychotherapy and neurological sciences deal with the brain; nevertheless, they continue to stay polarized. Existential phenomenological psychotherapy (EPP) has been in the forefront of meaning-centered counseling for almost a century. The phenomenological approach in psychotherapy originated in the works of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, and Viktor Frankl, and it has been committed to accounting for the existential possibilities and limitations of one’s life. EPP provides philosophically rich interpretations and empowers counseling techniques to assist mentally suffering individuals by finding meaning and purpose to life. The approach has proven to be effective in treating mood and anxiety disorders. This narrative review article demonstrates the development of EPP, the therapeutic methodology, evidence-based accounts of its curative techniques, current understanding of mood and anxiety disorders in neurological sciences, and a possible converging path to translate and integrate meaning-centered psychotherapy and neuroscience, concluding that the EPP may potentially play a synergistic role with the currently prevailing medication-based approaches for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.

Kierkegaard, Metaphysics, and Love

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
George Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gabriel Marcel ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Alternative Reading ◽  
The Way

AbstractNoting Heidegger’s critique of Kierkegaard’s way of relating time and eternity, the paper offers an alternative reading of Kierkegaard that suggests Heidegger has overlooked crucial elements in the Kierkegaardian account. Gabriel Marcel and Sharon Krishek are used to counter Heidegger’s minimizing of the deaths of others and to show how the deaths of others may become integral to our sense of self. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s discourse on the work of love in remembering the dead. Against the criticism that this reveals the absence of the other in Kierkegaardian love, the paper argues that, on the contrary, it shows how Kierkegaard conceives the self as inseparable from the core relationships of love that, despite of death, constitute it as the self that it is.

Greater Right Hemisphericity is Associated with Lower Self-Esteem in Adults

1991 ◽  
Vol 73 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1244-1246 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Persinger ◽  
Katherine Makarec
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Developmental History ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
History Of

28 men and 32 women were given Vingiano's Hemisphericity Questionnaire and the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory. People who reported the greatest numbers of right hemispheric indicators displayed the lowest self-esteem; the correlations were moderately strong ( r>.50) for both men and women. These results support the hypothesis that the sense of self is primarily a linguistic, left-hemispheric phenomenon and that a developmental history of frequent intrusion from right-hemispheric processes can infuse the self-concept with negative affect.

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