Social Ecology

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shigehiro Oishi ◽  
Jesse Graham

This article presents a socioecological approach (accounting for physical, societal, and interpersonal environments) to psychological theorizing and research. First, we demonstrate that economic systems, political systems, religious systems, climates, and geography exert a distal yet important influence on human mind and behavior. Second, we summarize the historical precedents of socioecological psychology. There have been several waves of ecological movements with distinct emphases in the history of psychological science, such as K. Lewin’s (1936, 1939) field theory and U. Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological approach to human development. Environmental and community psychologies, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s, promoted social activism through basic and applied research on ecological factors and social outcomes. Most recently, the rise of cultural psychology has encouraged psychologists to pay attention to cultural factors in basic psychological processes, but note that less attention has been given to socioecological factors per se. We highlight the benefits of bringing the socioecological perspective back to mainstream psychological theorizing and research.

1994 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avner Greif

Although the late medieval Commercial Revolution is considered to be a watershed in the economic history of Europe, the analysis of the interrelationship between political and economic systems in bringing about this period of economic growth has been neglected. This article conducts such an analysis with respect to the city of Genoa during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Viewing political institutions as self-enforcing agreements rather than as exogenous rules, I present and analyze the nature and evolution of Genoa's political systems and the relations between these systems and economic growth.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter DeScioli

AbstractThe target article by Boyer & Petersen (B&P) contributes a vital message: that people have folk economic theories that shape their thoughts and behavior in the marketplace. This message is all the more important because, in the history of economic thought, Homo economicus was increasingly stripped of mental capacities. Intuitive theories can help restore the mind of Homo economicus.


Author(s):  
Bashkim Selmani ◽  
Bekim Maksuti

The profound changes within the Albanian society, including Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, before and after they proclaimed independence (in exception of Albania), with the establishment of the parliamentary system resulted in mass spread social negative consequences such as crime, drugs, prostitution, child beggars on the street etc. As a result of these occurred circumstances emerged a substantial need for changes within the legal system in order to meet and achieve the European standards or behaviors and the need for adoption of many laws imported from abroad, but without actually reading the factual situation of the psycho-economic position of the citizens and the consequences of the peoples’ occupations without proper compensation, as a remedy for the victims of war or peace in these countries. The sad truth is that the perpetrators not only weren’t sanctioned, but these regions remained an untouched haven for further development of criminal activities, be it from the public state officials through property privatization or in the private field. The organized crime groups, almost in all cases, are perceived by the human mind as “Mafia” and it is a fact that this cannot be denied easily. The widely spread term “Mafia” is mostly known around the world to define criminal organizations.The Balkan Peninsula is highly involved in these illegal groups of organized crime whose practice of criminal activities is largely extended through the Balkan countries such as Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, etc. Many factors contributed to these strategic countries to be part of these types of activities. In general, some of the countries have been affected more specifically, but in all of the abovementioned countries organized crime has affected all areas of life, leaving a black mark in the history of these states.


2019 ◽  
pp. 218-255
Author(s):  
T.Yu. Kobischanov

Quite often in the course of historical events, social and economic changes obscure the changes in cultural psychology of ethnic groups and their representatives. The historical science explains what happened, how and why it was happening but very rarely gives us a chance to understand what people were feeling in this respect, what processes were going on in their individual and common consciousness and in the subconscious. The drama that the Christians of the Middle East are going through, the final act of which we are probably witnessing these days, urges us to look for its roots in the distant past. The Ottoman period in the history of East Christian communities is of particular significance. The Middle East Christians got under the Turkish rule as a discriminated minority pushed out on the curb of sociopolitical life, but by the beginning of the 20th century the Christians of the Middle East as a whole, and Christian communities of Syria and Lebanon in particular, were flourishing and were perfectly well adapted to possibilities that inclusion of the Ottoman state into the world capitalist system had to offer. The upgrade of the Christians status was accompanied by gradual changes in their social psychology including self identification of the members of the Christian communities, remodelling of their behaviour patterns in everyday life and in conflict situations as well as psychology of introconfessional relations. This research is an attempt to describe and analyse this cultural and psychological transformation.Нередко в ходе исторических событий социальноэкономические изменения затмевают изменения в культурной психологии этнических групп и их представителей. Историческая наука объясняет, что произошло, как и почему это происходило, но очень редко дает нам возможность понять, что чувствовали люди в этом отношении, какие процессы происходили в их индивидуальном и общем сознании и в подсознании. Драма, которую переживают христиане Ближнего Востока, заключительный акт которой мы, вероятно, наблюдаем в эти дни, побуждает нас искать ее корни в далеком прошлом. Османский период в истории восточных христианских общин имеет особое значение. Ближневосточные христиане попали под турецкое правление как дискриминируемое меньшинство, вытесненное на обочину общественнополитической жизни, но к началу 20 века христиане Ближнего Востока в целом, и христианские общины Сирии и Ливана в частности, процветали и были прекрасно приспособлены к возможностям, которые могло предложить включение Османского государства в мировую капиталистическую систему. Обновление статуса христиан сопровождалось постепенными изменениями в их социальной психологии, включая самоидентификацию членов христианских общин, перестройку их моделей поведения в повседневной жизни и в конфликтных ситуациях, а также психологию внутриконфессиональных отношений. Это исследование является попыткой описать и проанализировать эту культурную и психологическую трансформацию.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bond

<p class="p1"><span class="s2"><strong>Abstract </strong></span>| The challenge of interdisciplinary intellectual and strategic work in the extractive industries is particularly acute at the interface of research and social activism. Numerous social movements which are dedicated to sustainability fail to ‘connect the dots’ between their campaigns and broader political-economic and political-ecological visions<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>This is becoming a critical challenge in Africa, where the extreme damage done by mining and fossil fuels has generated impressive resistance<span class="s3"><strong>.</strong></span>However, the one obvious place to link these critiques from African activists was the Alternative Mining Indaba in Cape Town in February 2015, and a survey of narratives at that event leads to pessimism about interdisciplinary politics. The potential for much greater impact and deeper critiques of unsustainable extractivism lies in greater attention to combining social reproduction and production (as do eco-feminists), and to tackling social, economic, political and ecological factors with a more explicit structuralist critique and practical toolkit<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>Areas such as energy, economics and climate are ripe for linkages<span class="s3"><strong>. </strong></span>One reason for optimism is a climate justice declaration made by leading civil society activists in Maputo in April 2015.<strong></strong></p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-106

The article analyzes methodological errors Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, particularly their incorrect use of the concepts of mimicry and mimesis. The author of the article maintains that the leaders of the Frankfurt School made a mistake that threatens to undermine their argument when they juxtaposed mimesis and the attraction to death, which has led philosophers to trace back to mimesis the desire for destruction that is found in a civilization constructed by instrumental reasoning. The author reviews the arguments of the Dialectic of Enlightenment and emphasizes the unsuccessful attempt to fuse Freudian and Hegelian methods, which exposes the instability of opposing scientific reasoning to “living” nature. Some amusing quotations from Roger Caillois, who refused to think of mimesis as something entirely rational, are also brought to bear. As Brassier gradually unfolds Adorno and Horkheimer’s thesis, he indicates the consequences of their mistake, which confined thinkers to the bucolic dungeon of “remembering” the authentic nature that they cannot abandon because they have denied themselves access to both reductionist psychological models and to phenomenological theory as such. Brassier delineates the boundaries of this trap and notes the excessive attachment of the Dialectic of Enlightenment to the human. Brassier goes on to describe the prospects for a civilization of enlightenment: a mimesis of death in both senses (death imitates and is imitated) finds its highest expression in the technological automation of the intellect, which for Adorno and Horkheimer means the final implementation of the self-destructive mind. However, for Brassier it means the rewriting of the history of reason in space. This topological rewriting of history, carried out through an enlightenment, reestablishes the dynamics of horror more than mythical temporality: it will become clear that the human mind appears as the dream of a mimetic insect.


Author(s):  
Leah R. Warner ◽  
Stephanie A. Shields

Intersectionality theory concerns the interdependence of systems of inequality and implications for psychological research. Social identities cannot be studied independently of one another nor separately from the societal processes that maintain inequality. In this chapter we provide a brief overview of the history of intersectionality theory and then address how intersectionality theory challenges the way psychological theories typically conceive of the person, as well as the methods of data gathering and analysis customarily used by many psychologists. We specifically address two concerns often expressed by feminist researchers. First, how to reconcile the use of an intersectionality framework with currently-valued psychological science practices. Second, how intersectionality transforms psychology’s concern with individual experience by shifting the focus to the individual’s position within sociostructural frameworks and their social and political underpinnings. In a concluding section we identify two future directions for intersectionality theory: how psychological research on intersectionality can facilitate social activism, and current developments in intersectionality theory.


Author(s):  
Rebecca S. Bigler ◽  
Lynn S. Liben

Morality and gender are intersecting realms of human thought and behavior. Reasoning and action at their intersection (e.g., views of women’s rights legislation) carry important consequences for societies, communities, and individual lives. In this chapter, the authors argue that children’s developing views of morality and gender reciprocally shape one another in important and underexplored ways. The chapter begins with a brief history of psychological theory and research at the intersection of morality and gender and suggests reasons for the historical failure to view gender attitudes through moral lenses. The authors then describe reasons for expecting morality to play an important role in shaping children’s developing gender attitudes and, reciprocally, for gender attitudes to play an important role in shaping children’s developing moral values. The authors next illustrate the importance and relevance of these ideas by discussing two topics at the center of contentious debate in the United States concerning ethical policy and practice: treatment of gender nonconformity and gender-segregated schooling. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.


1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 742-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinz Eulau ◽  
John C. Wahlke ◽  
William Buchanan ◽  
Leroy C. Ferguson

The problem of representation is central to all discussions of the functions of legislatures or the behavior of legislators. For it is commonly taken for granted that, in democratic political systems, legislatures are both legitimate and authoritative decision-making institutions, and that it is their representative character which makes them authoritative and legitimate. Through the process of representation, presumably, legislatures are empowered to act for the whole body politic and are legitimized. And because, by virtue of representation, they participate in legislation, the represented accept legislative decisions as authoritative. But agreement about the meaning of the term “representation” hardly goes beyond a general consensus regarding the context within which it is appropriately used. The history of political theory is studded with definitions of representation, usually embedded in ideological assumptions and postulates which cannot serve the uses of empirical research without conceptual clarification.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2466
Author(s):  
Tomas Molina ◽  
Ernest Abadal

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change have served to alert both the public and policymakers about the scope of the predicted changes and the effects they would have on natural and economic systems. The first IPCC report was published in 1990, since which time a further four have been produced. The aim of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers in order to determine the degree of certainty associated with the statements they contain. For each of the reports we analyzed all statements containing expressions indicating the corresponding level of confidence. The aggregated results show a shift over time towards higher certainty levels, implying a “Call to action” (from 32.8% of statements in IPCC2 to 70.2% in IPCC5). With regard to the international agreements drawn up to tackle climate change, the growing level of confidence expressed in the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers reports might have been a relevant factor in the history of decision making.


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