scholarly journals Psychologising meritocracy: A historical account of its many guises

2021 ◽  
pp. 095935432110570
Author(s):  
Francesca Trevisan ◽  
Patrice Rusconi ◽  
Paul Hanna ◽  
Peter Hegarty
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Ideological Debate ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Iq Tests

Measured by psychologists, conceived in critical terms, popularised as satire, and exploited by politicians, meritocracy is a dilemmatic concept that has changed its meanings throughout history. Social psychologists have conceptualised and operationalised meritocracy both as an ideology that justifies inequality and as a justice principle based on equity. These two conceptualisations express opposing ideas about the merit of meritocracy and are both freighted ideologically. We document how this dilemma of meritocracy’s merit developed from meritocracy’s inception as a critical concept among UK sociologists in the 1950s to its operationalisation by U.S. and Canadian social psychologists at the end of the 20th century. We highlight the ways in which meritocracy was originally utilised, in part, to critique the measurement of merit via IQ tests, but ironically became a construct that, through its psychologisation, also required measurement. Through the operationalisation of meritocracy, social psychologists obscured the possibility of critiquing meritocracy and missed the opportunity to offer alternatives to a system that has been legitimised by their own work. A social psychology of meritocracy should take into consideration the ideological debate around its meaning and value and the implications of its measurement and study.

Könyvismertetések

2007 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-420
Author(s):  
Magda Ritoókné Ádám ◽  
Olivér Nagybányai Nagy ◽  
Csaba Pléh ◽  
Attila Keresztes
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
History Of Psychology ◽  
Modern Psychology ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Issues

VárinéSzilágyiIbolya: Építészprofilok, akik a 70-es, 80-as években indultak(Ritoókné Ádám Magda)      407RacsmányMihály(szerk.): Afejlődés zavarai és vizsgálómódszerei(Nagybányai Nagy Olivér)     409Új irányzatok és a bejárt út a pszichológiatörténet-írásban (Mandler, G.: Interesting times. An encounter with the 20th century; Hergenhahn, B. N.: An introduction to the history of psychology; Schultz, D. P.,Schultz, S. E.: A history of modern psychology; Greenwood, J. D.: The disappearance of the social in American social psychology;Bem, S.,LoorendeJong, H.: Theoretical issues in psychology. An introduction; Sternberg, R. J. (ed.)Unity in psychology: Possibility or pipedream?;Dalton, D. C.,Evans, R. B. (eds): __

Cognitive Consistency Theory in Social Psychology: A Paradigm Reconsidered

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arie W. Kruglanski ◽  
Katarzyna Jasko ◽  
Maxim Milyavsky ◽  
Marina Chernikova ◽  
David Webber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Affective Responses ◽  
Cognitive Consistency ◽  
Consistency Theory ◽  
Motivational Aspect ◽  
Human Need ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Epistemic Aspect

From the 1950s onward, psychologists have generally assumed that people possess a general need for cognitive consistency whose frustration by an inconsistency elicits negative affect. We offer a novel perspective on this issue by introducing the distinction between epistemic and motivational impact of consistent and inconsistent cognitions. The epistemic aspect is represented by the updated expectancy of the outcome addressed in such cognitions. The motivational aspect stems from value (desirability) of that outcome. We show that neither the outcome’s value nor its updated expectancy are systematically related to cognitive consistency or inconsistency. Consequently, we question consistency’s role in the driving of affective responses, and the related presumption of a universal human need for cognitive consistency.

Giftedness from the perspective of research on genius: Some precautionary implications

2021 ◽  
pp. 026142942110463
Author(s):  
Dean Keith Simonton
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Specific Domain ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Empirical Relations ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Iq Tests

The terms giftedness and genius entered the research literature in the 19th century. Although not synonymous, both terms were defined according to potential or actual achievement in a specific domain. However, in the early 20th century, both terms became defined according to performance on domain-generic IQ tests. Given the empirical relations between achievement and intelligence, this transfer of meaning is unjustified. Both giftedness and genius must be defined with respect to potential or actual domain-specific achievements.

The Apprentice

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Wheeler Winston Dixon
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
The Other ◽  
John Ford ◽  
The 1950S

This chapter provides a background on Terence Fisher's career that is regarded by most as that of a journeyman director and by French critics that argued that Fisher was a master filmmaker since the 1950s. It looks at the efforts of David Pirie and others who brought about the first serious critical appraisal of Fisher's work beginning in the late 1960s. It also describes Fisher as the greatest Gothic filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century and British equivalent in terms of style and seriousness of the great American myth-master, John Ford. The chapter mentions The Curse of Frankenstein, in which Fisher creates a real, believable world, and does superb work with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and the other members of the cast. It talks about Fisher's admission toward the end of his life about he had very little affection for science fiction.

The Great Reversal

Divested ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 9-27
Author(s):  
Ken-Hou Lin ◽  
Megan Tobias Neely
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Thing ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
Natural Result ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter discusses the definition of finance and the meaning of financialization, a concept introduced long before the 2008 financial crisis that has since gained popularity in both academic and public discussion. It argues that finance, while having served an important function in many societies, has become too much of a good thing in the United States, and cites evidence demonstrating its extraordinary growth in and beyond the last quarter of the 20th century. The chapter also provides a brief historical account that identifies the political and institutional roots of financialization, from the Bretton Woods Agreement to the political reorientation in the 1980s, underscoring that the shift was not a natural result of capitalist economy but a historical product contingent on a wide variety of developments.

César Moscoso Carrasco and Malaria Eradication in Bolivia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole L. Pacino
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
World Health Organization ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
World Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Malaria Eradication ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Health Organization

César Moscoso Carrasco (1904–1966), a central figure in Bolivia’s mid-20th-century public health system, wanted to liberate Bolivia from malaria. In a career that spanned three decades, he came close to achieving this goal, but ultimately did not live to see successful eradication. Moscoso was one of the first Bolivian public health specialists in malariology, and was recognized by the World Health Organization for his contributions to the field in 1963. At all stages of his career, he fortuitously aligned himself with the individual or organization that could help him accomplish his professional ambitions and his mission of eradicating malaria in Bolivia. He was the founder and director of the National Anti-Malaria Service in 1929, where he made a name for himself working to halt the spread of malaria in Mizque, in the Cochabamba region. In the 1940s, he secured a position with the Rockefeller Foundation, where he had access to resources beyond the scope of the Bolivian government and an international network of public health specialists. Finally, in the 1950s, he headed the newly formed National Service for Malaria Eradication, which was a Bolivian government initiative supported by international organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau. In the 1950s and 1960s, he came the closest to achieving his goal. Unfortunately, he died the same way he lived: fighting a disease, possibly malaria, which he contracted on a visit to Ceylon as a malaria expert and consultant. Moscoso’s life is a window into many aspects of Bolivia’s 20th-century history. First, his life story illustrates both the potential and limitations of the Bolivian healthcare system. Indeed, Moscoso often had to work with international or binational organizations to accomplish the work that he saw as necessary and important. Second, his career shows how political changes in Bolivia impacted healthcare. Since his career spans the Chaco War of 1932–1935, the politically tumultuous 1940s, and the 1952 National Revolution, it provides a personal account of how these events changed healthcare in Bolivia. His story demonstrates the hardships that Bolivian doctors faced as they worked to improve their healthcare system, including low pay, few resources, and little respect from their foreign colleagues.

‘Tutt' ora vivente’: Petrassi and the concerto principle

Tempo ◽  
1995 ◽  
pp. 2-11
Author(s):  
Calum MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
10Th Anniversary ◽  
The Third ◽  
International Reputation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Santa Cecilia ◽  
Peter Maxwell Davies

Italian masters seem habitually to survive to a ripe old age. The proverbial example is Verdi, dying at 87, but Gianfrancesco Malipiero had turned 91 by his death in 1973, and his longevity has now been equalled, and seems likely to be surpassed, by Goffredo Petrassi. Long an eminent and respected figure in Italian musical life, and routinely named in the reference books as a significant 20th-century composer, Petrassi has never been well known in this country. His international reputation was at its height in the 1950s and 60s, and probably reached its apogee here with the London premiere, in 1957, of his Sixth Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the BBC for the 10th anniversary of the Third Programme. During those decades he travelled, conducted and adjudicated widely; he was closely associated with the ISCM (and was its President in the years 1954–56); as Professor of Composition at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome, he exercised a powerful influence on his country's musical life. He is especially celebrated as a teacher: his Italian pupils have included Aldo Clementi, Riccardo Malipiero, the film composer Enrico Morricone and the conductor Zoltán Pesko, but composers of many nations have studied with him. Among his British pupils, one need only instance Peter Maxwell Davies, Cornelius Cardew, and the late Kenneth Leighton to see that his teaching was never stylistically prescriptive.

scholarly journals Where are all the new antibiotics? The new antibiotic paradox

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
JM Conly ◽  
BL Johnston
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Causes Of Death ◽  
Clinical Use ◽  
Infectious Agents ◽  
Antibiotic Development ◽  
Common Causes ◽  
New Antibiotics ◽  
The 1950S

At the beginning of the 20th century, illnesses caused by infectious agents ranked among the most common causes of death in North America and, indeed, worldwide. By the middle of the century, dramatic advances in the diagnosis, management and prevention of infectious diseases had occurred, and hopes were raised that many infectious diseases would be eliminated by the end of the 20th century. Much of this success in the management of infectious diseases was related to a continuous new armamentarium of antibiotics. The discovery of penicillin by Fleming in 1928 followed by the discovery and clinical use of sulphonamides in the 1930s heralded the age of modern antibiotherapy (1,2). Penicillin came into widespread use during the early 1940s. By the 1950s, the 'golden era' of antibiotic development and use was well underway, and multiple new classes of antibiotics were introduced over the next two decades (Table 1) (3).

Illegalising Licitness?

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 663-683
Author(s):  
Woonkyung Yeo
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Central Government ◽  
National Level ◽  
Regional Government ◽  
State Control ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Government ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Economic Transaction

In the mid-20th Century, the practice of bartering was one of the most prevalent forms of economic transaction around the Indonesian Archipelago. The most prevalent and crucial for Indonesian society was the trade conducted along the border between Singapore and Sumatra. The government centred in Jakarta often approved and even encouraged barter with Singapore at the regional and national level. In many cases, however, bartering along the borders was done autonomously by the regional government and traders, and often out of state control. In these circumstances, the central government sometimes “illegalised” barter trade, while the regional government and societies, arguing that their barter transactions were “licit”, issued a challenge to the government’s order. Such tension and conflict over barter in the region was exacerbated by political upheavals such as regional rebellions in the 1950s and the Konfrontasi in the 1960s. This article traces changing policies and discourses regarding “barter” between Singapore and the Indonesian islands (mostly Sumatra) in the mid-20th Century, and highlight how an economic transaction was politicised, and how the ideas of licitness and legality were in confrontation in certain political backgrounds.

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