scholarly journals To Remember or to Forget: Political Repression in the Collective Memory of Descendants

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 825-848
Author(s):  
Inna B. Bovina ◽  
Tatiana V. Ryabova ◽  
Vladislav Y. Konkin

The question of political repression divides society and polarizes public discourse. Understanding political repression through the prism of socio-psychological knowledge is a zone of proximal development for researchers, because the suicidal nature of repression, which A.M. Etkind points out, makes it difficult to understand terror, hinders the work of mechanisms that operate in a society that has come into contact with a catastrophe of such magnitude and duration. The study is devoted to the study of social ideas about repression, as well as emotional reactions towards repression and the repressed among the descendants of the repressed, i.e., their children and grandchildren. A total of 110 people (61.82% - females) aged 44 to 78 years, 93.63% with higher education, participated in the study. The sample included three groups: the generation of children (21 people, M = 59.52 years; SD = 9.04); the generation of grandchildren (63 people, M = 54.71 years; SD = 7.66); and the control group (26 people, M = 53.65 years; SD = 7.72). A survey in the form of a questionnaire was used, followed by a prototypical analysis of associations, which made it possible to identify the structure of ideas about repression in the three groups. To analyze emotional reactions, a factor analysis of scores on 38 scales was carried out, followed by an analysis on the new variables. The characteristics of the structure of social representations (the core and periphery zones) are consistent with the initial hypothesis that the supposedly traumatic event of repression is perceived as a personal one by the descendants but as a social one by the respondents of the control group. There were no differences in the severity of emotional reactions in relation to the category of repressions and repressed between the generations. The combined group of descendants significantly differs from the control group in the greater severity of indicators when assessing the category of repression by the factors of Anxiety, Depression and Grief, and when assessing the category of repressed by the factor of Grief. The results of the study of social ideas about the past allow us to talk about the collective memory of repression in two generations of the descendants of the repressed: in the structure of the inner world of generations of descendants, repression is a personal event of family history, colored by sorrowful feelings of varying degrees of intensity and depth.

2021 ◽  
pp. 216770262199454
Author(s):  
Søren Risløv Staugaard ◽  
Annette Kjær Fuglsang ◽  
Dorthe Berntsen

Studies suggest that general control deficits and elevated affect intensity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) extend beyond memory for the index trauma. However, few researchers have pursued this possibility experimentally by examining memory for novel events. We used an experimental design to measure the frequency and characteristics of involuntary memories over time. Veterans with and without PTSD saw pictures of neutral and war-related scenes. Half of the participants completed an involuntary-retrieval task immediately after encoding, whereas the other half completed the retrieval task after 1 week. Veterans with PTSD had stronger emotional reactions to their involuntary memories of the scenes regardless of their original valence. The emotional impact and specificity of the memories did not diminish over time in PTSD veterans but did so in the control group. The findings are consistent with an increased emotional response to a range of memories that include—but are not limited to—memories of traumatic events.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (95) ◽  
pp. 20140043 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giancarlo De Luca ◽  
Patrizio Mariani ◽  
Brian R. MacKenzie ◽  
Matteo Marsili

Animals form groups for many reasons, but there are costs and benefits associated with group formation. One of the benefits is collective memory. In groups on the move, social interactions play a crucial role in the cohesion and the ability to make consensus decisions. When migrating from spawning to feeding areas, fish schools need to retain a collective memory of the destination site over thousands of kilometres, and changes in group formation or individual preference can produce sudden changes in migration pathways. We propose a modelling framework, based on stochastic adaptive networks, that can reproduce this collective behaviour. We assume that three factors control group formation and school migration behaviour: the intensity of social interaction, the relative number of informed individuals and the strength of preference that informed individuals have for a particular migration area. We treat these factors independently and relate the individuals’ preferences to the experience and memory for certain migration sites. We demonstrate that removal of knowledgeable individuals or alteration of individual preference can produce rapid changes in group formation and collective behaviour. For example, intensive fishing targeting the migratory species and also their preferred prey can reduce both terms to a point at which migration to the destination sites is suddenly stopped. The conceptual approaches represented by our modelling framework may therefore be able to explain large-scale changes in fish migration and spatial distribution.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.V. Portnova ◽  
A. B. Rebreikina ◽  
O.V. Martynova

AbstractWe aimed to investigate the ability of children aged 5–14 years old (preschoolers, primary schoolers, and preteens) to assess and anticipate time intervals. 287 Russian children aged 5–14 years old and 26 adults of control group participated in our study. The neuropsychological assessment, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and a battery of time-related tests were applied. All groups of children overestimated the event’s duration, although the accuracy of the second estimations increased among the participants aged 6–8 years after a prompt was offered. A zone of proximal development for time anticipation task was detected for children aged 9-11 years, when the prompt could significantly improve the accuracy of time perception. The participants overestimated the duration of both upcoming and past events, with the degree of overestimation being found to be negatively correlated with age. Further, a higher degree of accuracy in terms of time estimation was found to be correlated with higher scores on the attention and memory tests, and accuracy of time anticipation was associated with scores of praxis test.


1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
H Kim ◽  
BJ Garvin ◽  
DK Moser

BACKGROUND: Negative emotional reactions and difficulty in communicating are common in patients receiving mechanical ventilation and may adversely affect recovery from cardiac surgery. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of providing concrete objective information about emotional stress and difficulty in communicating related to mechanical ventilation to Korean cardiac surgery patients. METHODS: A quasi-experimental 2-group design was used. The 22 subjects in the control group received the usual information; the 21 in the experimental group received concrete objective information in addition to the usual information. State anxiety, negative affect, use of sedative and analgesic medications, and difficulty communicating were compared between the 2 groups after surgery. RESULTS: Patients who received concrete objective information experienced less anxiety and negative mood during mechanical ventilation, less difficulty in communicating, and a shorter intubation time than did patients in the control group. The 2 groups did not differ in the amount of sedative or analgesic medication used per hour during mechanical ventilation. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing interventions that include concrete objective information help cardiac patients cope with the stresses associated with surgery and mechanical ventilation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1073-1073
Author(s):  
M. Klarić ◽  
T. Frančišković ◽  
B. Petrov

IntroductionPTSD is dominant, but rarely the only psychological disorder that is present among individuals who have a history of exposure to traumatic event.ObjectivesTo examine morbidity in veterans 12 years after the war, with special emphasis on comorbidity of PTSD and other psychiatric disorders.MethodsThe study population consisted of 154 veterans who sought psychiatric treatment due to PTSD. The control group consisted of 77 war veterans who do not have PTSD, collected by snow balling method through veteran associations. The study used a general demographic questionnaire, the HTQ-version for BiH, and the MINI.ResultsVeterans who sought psychiatric treatment due to PTSD, were experienced a significantly greater number of traumatic events (t = 5.66; P < 0.001) and achieved significantly higher scores on a scale of PTSD symptoms (t = 15.291; P < 0.001), perceived personal functionality (t = 12.491; P < 0.001) and the overall result of traumatic symptoms (t = 14.499; P < 0.001). Additionally, among veterans with PTSD there are significantly more of those who reported chronic somatic diseases (X2 = 17.988; P < 0.001), who met the criteria for the diagnosis of current depressive episode (X2 = 36.297; P < 0.001), previous depressive episode (X2 = 29.356; P < 0.001), depressive episode with melancholic features (X2 = 29.356; P < 0.001), dysthymia (X2 = 9.959; P = 0.007), the criteria for the diagnosis of panic disorder with agoraphobia (X2 = 5.490; P = 0.019), PTSD (X2 = 102.018; P < 0.001) and generalized anxiety disorder (X2 = 89.755; P < 0.001).ConclusionAlthough PTSD is the dominant cause for seeking psychiatric treatment in veterans, PTSD promotes a comprehensive psychiatric and somatic comorbidity, and predominated are anxious and affective disorders.


2005 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivka Yahav ◽  
Janine Vosburgh ◽  
Ariel Miller

The effect of a chronic illness of one parent on children is determined by a complicated interaction of various emotional components. Our focus was on the children’s and adolescent’s emotional reactions and feelings towards their multiple sclerosis (MS)-affected parents, including: degree of responsibility, obligation and concern, yielding behaviour and active protection, fear and anxiety related to the state of illness, their sense of burden in connection with household tasks and errands, and anger. Fifty-six children, ages 10=18, each having a parent with MS, were examined. The results were compared to a control group of 156 age-matched children with healthy parents. Feelings were examined by means of a questionnaire previously constructed by us. We found that children of parents with MS felt more responsibility and obligation than children of healthy parents. They also exhibited more yielding behaviour, more fear and anxiety related to states of illness, a greater sense of burden and a greater degree of anger. We consider the interaction between the sex of the parent and the sex of the child in connection with these feelings and discuss the implications of the ‘parental child’ role of these children.


1982 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 428-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Ratge ◽  
Ernst Knoll ◽  
Ulrich Diener ◽  
Alexander Hadjidimos ◽  
Hermann Wisser

Abstract. Circadian rhythms of catecholamines, cortisol and prolactin were investigated in 4 healthy subjects and in 6 patients suffering from an apallic syndrome. The clinical picture of this syndrome is characterized by disturbed consciousness (coma vigile), suspension of the sleeping and waking rhythm, lack of emotional reactions and appearance of primitive motor patterns. With the exception of dopamine a pronounced circadian rhythm was found in the control group for all investigated parameters. Catecholamines and cortisol showed a good correlation in the temporal pattern of plasma concentrations and urinary excreted amounts. In all apallic patients the circadian rhythm of prolactin was abolished. Only in one patient a rhythm of catecholamines and in 2 patients a rhythm of cortisol was still detectable. The data may indicate that the episodic nature of hormone secretion was essentially unaffected by the apallic syndrome. These results are regarded as an indication that endogenous, centrally controlled processes participate in circadian rhythms.


2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 1929-1938 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Staebler ◽  
B. Renneberg ◽  
M. Stopsack ◽  
P. Fiedler ◽  
M. Weiler ◽  
...  

BackgroundDisturbances in social interaction are a defining feature of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this study, facial emotional expressions, which are crucial for adaptive interactions in social contexts, were assessed in patients with BPD in response to social exclusion.MethodWe examined facial emotional reactions of 35 patients with BPD and 33 healthy controls when playing Cyberball, a virtual ball-tossing game that reliably induces social exclusion. Besides self-reported emotional responses, facial emotional expressions were analyzed by applying the Emotional Facial Action Coding System (EMFACS).ResultsPatients with BPD showed a biased perception of participation. They more readily reported feeling excluded compared to controls even when they were included. In BPD, social exclusion led to an increase in self-reported other-focused negative emotions. Overall, EMFACS analyses revealed that BPD patients reacted with fewer positive expressions and with significantly more mixed emotional expressions (two emotional facial expressions at the same time) compared to the healthy control group when excluded.ConclusionsBesides a negative bias for perceived social participation, ambiguous facial emotional expressions may play an important role in the disturbed relatedness in patients with BPD.


AJS Review ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 16 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Zerubavel

In 1920, a brief but fatal battle between Arabs and Jews took place at the Jewish settlement of Tel Hai in the northern Galilee. The defense of Tel Hai soon became a landmark in the history of Israeli society. The story of Tel Hai was regarded as a major symbolic text of the pioneering ethos and an important step toward the development of a new national Hebrew culture. Highlighting the theme of collective death and rebirth, Tel Hai offered a modern, secular text that sanctified the new nation and dramatized the emergence of a new type of Jew. For the Jewish pioneers in Palestine, Tel Hai embodied the ideals of settlement and defense, providing a concrete example of their resolute determination to hold on to new settlements at all costs.The present study examines the role of Tel Hai as a national myth, name-ly, a symbolic narrative relating to an important event in the nation's past that embodies sacred national values and is used as a charter for political action.1 Following Halbwachs's pioneering approach to the study of collective memory,2 this article explores the meaning of Tel Hai as it was constructed in public discourse, focusing upon two periods of conflict within Israeli society. Thus it is not a historical study of the event that took place at Tel Hai in 1920, but a study of how this event has been remembered and reinterpreted in Israeli culture.


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