Talking Your Self Into It: How and When Accounts Shape Motivation for Action

Following Mills, several prominent sociologists have encouraged researchers to analyze actors’ motive talk not as data on the subjective desires that move them to pursue particular ends but as post hoc accounts oriented toward justifying actions already undertaken. Combining insights from hermeneutic theories of the self and pragmatist theories of action, we develop a theoretical position that challenges dichotomous assumptions about whether motive accounts reflect either justifications or motivations for action, instead illustrating how they can migrate from one status to the other over time. We develop this perspective through a comparative analysis of actors’ involvements in two quite different careers of social action—religion and mixed martial arts—documenting both how and when justificatory talk about actors’ motives for initiating a course of action at one point in time became formative of their subjective motivations for sustaining these same courses of action at another.

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Fast Tracks and Inner Journeys: Crafting Portable Selves for Contemporary Careers

Administrative Science Quarterly ◽

10.1177/0001839217720930 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 63 (3) ◽

pp. 479-525 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Gianpiero Petriglieri ◽

Jennifer Louise Petriglieri ◽

Jack Denfeld Wood

Keyword(s):

Process Model ◽

Cultural Influence ◽

Business Administration ◽

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Self In Relation ◽

Working Lives ◽

One Year ◽

Mobile Working ◽

Over Time

Through a longitudinal, qualitative study of 55 managers engaged in mobile careers across organizations, industries, and countries, and pursuing a one-year international master’s of business administration (MBA), we build a process model of the crafting of portable selves in temporary identity workspaces. Our findings reveal that contemporary careers in general, and temporary membership in an institution, fuel people’s efforts to craft portable selves: selves endowed with definitions, motives, and abilities that can be deployed across roles and organizations over time. Two pathways for crafting a portable self—one adaptive, the other exploratory—emerged from the interaction of individuals’ aims and concerns with institutional resources and demands. Each pathway involved developing a coherent understanding of the self in relation to others and to the institution that anchored participants to their current organization while preparing them for future ones. The study shows how institutions that host members temporarily can help them craft selves that afford a sense of agentic direction and enduring connection, tempering anxieties and bolstering hopes associated with mobile working lives. It also suggests that institutions serving as identity workspaces for portable selves may remain attractive and extend their cultural influence in an age of workforce mobility.

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Constituting agency in the delivery of telephone-mediated victim support

10.26686/wgtn.14344034 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ann Weatherall

Keyword(s):

Conversation Analysis ◽

Speech Acts ◽

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Syntactic Variation ◽

Individual Agency ◽

Course Of Action ◽

Telephone Helpline ◽

Victims Of Crime ◽

Empirical Demonstration

© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis. In telephone helpline interactions, a practical problem for participants is how to advance a relevant course of action about what can be done within the institution’s remit that may not be what a caller asks for or needs. This study investigates how call-takers progress delivering support for callers ringing a service for victims of crime and trauma. It focuses on how actions are advanced by the call-taker using linguistic formats that can be broadly characterised as directive-commissive speech acts. The research asks how agency is constituted through the linguistic format parties’ use to display what can be done and who decides. Using conversation analysis to examine 80 cases where the delivery of support is progressed, the results show that subtle morpho-syntactic variation in the format of interrogatives (i.e., ‘Did you want to,’ ‘Do you want to’) display orientations to who can do or decide upon a future course of action. Evidence is presented that the ‘did you form’ tilts the agency toward the Self as something she can progress whereas the ‘do you’ format tilts the balance toward the Other to decide. More obviously, the actions can be formulated in terms of the Self committing to an action (e.g., ‘I’ll pop you through’) or as clearly deferring to the Other to decide (e.g., ‘would you like me to’). This study furthers the general intellectual project of discursive psychology by providing an empirical demonstration of the way classic questions about the nature of subjectivity and individual agency can be re-specified as shared practices for accomplishing action in social interaction.

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Rapid Weight Loss Elicits Harmful Biochemical and Hormonal Responses in Mixed Martial Arts Athletes

International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism ◽

10.1123/ijsnem.2014-0267 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 25 (5) ◽

pp. 480-486 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Victor Silveira Coswig ◽

David Hideyoshi Fukuda ◽

Fabrício Boscolo Del Vecchio

Keyword(s):

Weight Loss ◽

Body Mass ◽

Martial Arts ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Rapid Weight Loss ◽

Mixed Martial Arts ◽

Training Experience ◽

Hormonal Responses ◽

Before And After ◽

Post Hoc

The purpose of this study was to compare biochemical and hormonal responses between mixed martial arts (MMA) competitors with minimal prefight weight loss and those undergoing rapid weight loss (RWL). Blood samples were taken from 17 MMA athletes (Mean± SD; age: 27.4 ±5.3yr; body mass: 76.2 ± 12.4kg; height: 1.71 ± 0.05m and training experience: 39.4 ± 25 months) before and after each match, according to the official events rules. The no rapid weight loss (NWL, n = 12) group weighed in on the day of the event (~30 min prior fight) and athletes declared not having used RWL strategies, while the RWL group (n = 5) weighed in 24 hr before the event and the athletes claimed to have lost 7.4 ± 1.1kg, approximately 10% of their body mass in the week preceding the event. Results showed significant (p < .05) increases following fights, regardless of group, in lactate, glucose, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatinine, and cortisol for all athletes. With regard to group differences, NWL had significantly (p < .05) greater creatinine levels (Mean± SD; pre to post) (NWL= 101.6 ± 15–142.3 ± 22.9μmol/L and RWL= 68.9 ± 10.6–79.5 ± 15.9μmol/L), while RWL had higher LDH (median [interquartile range]; pre to post) (NWL= 211.5[183–236] to 231[203–258]U/L and RWL= 390[370.5–443.5] to 488[463.5–540.5]U/L) and AST (NWL= 30[22–37] to 32[22–41]U/L and 39[32.5–76.5] to 72[38.5–112.5] U/L) values (NWL versus RWL, p < .05). Post hoc analysis showed that AST significantly increased in only the RWL group, while creatinine increased in only the NWL group. The practice of rapid weight loss showed a negative impact on energy availability and increased both muscle damage markers and catabolic expression in MMA fighters.

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On the self-presentation in the sport discourse (On the example of mixed martial arts fighters’ discourse)

Izvestiya of Saratov University New Series Series Philology Journalism ◽

10.18500/1817-7115-2021-21-4-387-392 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 387-392

Author(s):

Alexander B. Alexeyev ◽

Keyword(s):

Martial Arts ◽

Political Discourse ◽

The Self ◽

The Political ◽

Mixed Martial Arts ◽

Self Presentation

The article considers specific features of MMA fighters’ self-presentation. The strategy of self-presentation was studied predominantly on the basis of the political discourse, but it is used in the sport discourse as well. It has been found out that for self-presentation sportsmen actively use metaphors, epithets, similes, allegories, cliches, actualize such modality and formulas as ‘I am an underdog’, ‘I am the best’, ‘I am like you’.

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Application of plant extracts for pest management in tea: a study on tea leaf’s thrips, Scirtothrips bispinosus

Journal of Bio-Science ◽

10.3329/jbs.v28i0.44714 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 87-93

Author(s):

MAK Azad ◽

I Ahmad ◽

A Mainuddin

Keyword(s):

Statistical Analysis ◽

Medicinal Plants ◽

Medicinal Plant ◽

Pest Management ◽

Lantana Camara ◽

The Other ◽

Bioactive Molecules ◽

Post Hoc ◽

One Way Anova ◽

Over Time

Medicinal plant extract contains bioactive molecules and these molecules are benefited to mitigate, eradicate or cure diseases. In advent to search for new medicinally important plant, the current paper deals to select the most effective and promising plants which are suitable for controlling tea leaf’s thrips (Scirtothrips bispinosus) based on extracts concentration and death affect over time. To fulfill the specific objectives, five medicinal plants extracts viz. Ipomoea crassicaulis, Lantana camara, Ipomoea hederaceaa, Glycosmis arborea, and Justicia gendarussa had been used with four different concentrations. From statistical analysis using One-way ANOVA and post hoc test, it was found that Ipomoea crassicaulis and Lantana camara are the most promising of all the experimented plants extracts based on both time and concentration. In the study, average mortality was found 0.47, 1.67, 1.93 and 2.53 for concentration of 1%, 5%, 10% and 15% respectively. Analysis based on different concentrations reveals that average mortality of thrips increases significantly with the increase of concentrations. Coefficient of variance was found minimum for Ipomoea crassicaulis and Lantana camara plants with range of 5.44 to 6.71 based on time and concentration. So, it could be concluded that these two plants are the most effective plants for controlling the tea thrips. For the other plants, ranks were found as Ipomoea hederaceaa, Glycosmis arborea and Justicia gendarussa respectively as well. J. bio-sci. 28: 87-93, 2020

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Mobiles and the Self: A Trajectory of Paradigmatic Change

The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Communication and Society ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190864385.013.3 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 41-53

Author(s):

Scott W. Campbell ◽

Edwin (Wenhuan) Wang ◽

Joseph B. Bayer

Keyword(s):

Daily Life ◽

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Conversational Agents ◽

Mobile Media ◽

Paradigmatic Change ◽

Over Time ◽

Technology Shifts

This chapter identifies old and new paradigms for how people engage with mobile media and their implications for the self. The first involves talking to distant others, which can divide the self when done around co-present others in public settings. The next paradigm marks a shift from voice conversations to messaging, which can be more easily weaved into the flows of daily life moments and movements. The authors revisit how over time this leads to routinization, to the extent that the technology becomes a deeply embedded part of the self. Finally, the authors identify a paradigm presently gaining momentum with mobile conversational agents (e.g., Siri and Google Assistant), which heralds a return to talking. With this mode of engagement, the technology shifts away from the self to become the “other” as users interact with and not just through it.

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Governing urban diversity through myths of national sameness – a comparative analysis of Denmark and Sweden

Journal of Organizational Ethnography ◽

10.1108/joe-06-2021-0034 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Tina Gudrun Jensen ◽

Rebecka Söderberg

Keyword(s):

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Comparative Approach ◽

Content Type ◽

Self Image ◽

Integration Policies ◽

Cultural Texts ◽

The City ◽

Over Time ◽

Urban Diversity

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore problematisations of urban diversity in urban and integration policies in Denmark and Sweden; the paper aims to show how such policies express social imaginaries about the self and the other underlying assumptions of sameness that legitimise diverging ways of managing urban diversity and (re)organising the city.Design/methodology/approachInspired by anthropology of policy and post-structural approaches to policy analysis, the authors approach urban and integration policies as cultural texts that are central to the organisation of cities and societies. With a comparative approach, the authors explore how visions of diversity take shape and develop over time in Swedish and Danish policies on urban development and integration.FindingsSwedish policy constructs productiveness as crucial to the imagined national sameness, whereas Danish policy constructs cultural sameness as fundamental to the national self-image. By constructing the figure of “the unproductive”/“the non-Western” as the other, diverging from an imagined sameness, policies for organising the city through removing and “improving” urban diverse others are legitimised.Originality/valueThe authors add to previous research by focussing on the construction of the self as crucial in processes of othering and by highlighting how both nationalistic and colour-blind policy discourses construct myths of national sameness, which legitimise the governing of urban diversity. The authors highlight and de-naturalise assumptions and categorisations by showing how problem representations differ over time and between two neighbouring countries.

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Constituting agency in the delivery of telephone-mediated victim support

10.26686/wgtn.14344034.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ann Weatherall

Keyword(s):

Conversation Analysis ◽

Speech Acts ◽

The Self ◽

The Other ◽

Syntactic Variation ◽

Individual Agency ◽

Course Of Action ◽

Telephone Helpline ◽

Victims Of Crime ◽

Empirical Demonstration

© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis. In telephone helpline interactions, a practical problem for participants is how to advance a relevant course of action about what can be done within the institution’s remit that may not be what a caller asks for or needs. This study investigates how call-takers progress delivering support for callers ringing a service for victims of crime and trauma. It focuses on how actions are advanced by the call-taker using linguistic formats that can be broadly characterised as directive-commissive speech acts. The research asks how agency is constituted through the linguistic format parties’ use to display what can be done and who decides. Using conversation analysis to examine 80 cases where the delivery of support is progressed, the results show that subtle morpho-syntactic variation in the format of interrogatives (i.e., ‘Did you want to,’ ‘Do you want to’) display orientations to who can do or decide upon a future course of action. Evidence is presented that the ‘did you form’ tilts the agency toward the Self as something she can progress whereas the ‘do you’ format tilts the balance toward the Other to decide. More obviously, the actions can be formulated in terms of the Self committing to an action (e.g., ‘I’ll pop you through’) or as clearly deferring to the Other to decide (e.g., ‘would you like me to’). This study furthers the general intellectual project of discursive psychology by providing an empirical demonstration of the way classic questions about the nature of subjectivity and individual agency can be re-specified as shared practices for accomplishing action in social interaction.

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Performance Bonuses and Effort: Evidence from Fight Night Awards in Mixed Martial Arts

International Journal of Financial Studies ◽

10.3390/ijfs7010013 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 13 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paul Gift

Keyword(s):

Martial Arts ◽

Compensation Mechanism ◽

Sample Period ◽

Mixed Martial Arts ◽

Personnel Economics ◽

Ex Post ◽

Ultimate Fighting Championship ◽

Performance Statistics ◽

Over Time

This paper investigates the role of fight night bonus awards on fighter behavior in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Extreme Cage (WEC) fighting mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions. Behavior is analyzed using detailed fighter performance statistics, exploiting variation in bonus size across events and over time. Findings suggest that fighters are not meaningfully influenced by bonus levels within the range observed in the sample period and possible explanations are discussed. Fight night bonuses appear to serve as a lottery compensation mechanism to ex post reward performances consistent with an MMA promotion’s desires rather than ex ante incentivize such performances. Findings have implications for strategic MMA promoter decisions and contribute more broadly to the personnel economics literature on incentives and compensation.

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