Feminism, Freedom and the Hierarchy of Happiness in the Psychological Novels of May Sinclair

May Sinclair ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Truran
Keyword(s):  
Affect Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
The Social ◽  
May Sinclair ◽  
Psychological Novels ◽  
Three Sisters

May Sinclair, in her psychological novels The Three Sisters (1915), Mary Olivier: A Life (1919), and The Life and Death of Harriet Frean (1919-1921), develops a concept of happiness which critiques the social, psychological, and physical constraints that are placed upon women due to their emotional labour. For Sinclair, some forms of happiness are better than others, creating a hierarchy of happiness across her work. Drawing on contemporary affect theory, this chapter offers an analysis of Sinclair’s complicated and deeply ambivalent representation of the feeling of happiness. The concept of happiness in Sinclair’s writing is protean. Certain forms of happiness must be resisted; for example the infantilizing contentment of Harriet Frean or the manipulative selfishness of Mary Cartaret. Still other forms should be actively pursued, for example Mary Olivier’s ecstatic and rapturous relationship with nature. Happiness can also become parasitic on suffering. Sinclair seems to be suggesting in both Mary Olivier and The Three Sisters that self-sacrifice, even self-abnegation, is the route to the “perfect” happiness. Affect can be dangerous in Sinclair’s work. To experience affect is to be affected and therefore the safest happiness is ecstatic: to be outside of the self, to be beyond the body.

Heading South! Importing Discourse Analysis

2001 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Painter ◽  
Wilhelmina H. Theron
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
Theoretical System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Conduct

Postmodern critiques problematise the import of social psychology into non-western contexts on epistemological and ideological grounds. Yet, British approaches to the discipline remain popular with critical social psychologists in South Africa. One such import product is discourse analysis, which, as a “postmodern” social psychology, seemingly resolves challenges of “intellectual colonialism” by endorsing a constructionist understanding of social psychological phenomena. However, by extending a conception of language into a discursive ontology enables only a partial social psychological understanding of the often insidious nature of experience and social conduct even when discourses change. What is required is an understanding of these aspects of social agency as also pre-reflexively and non-propositionally patterned, making necessary a conception of culture that works, so to speak, directly on the body. This remains impossible in a theoretical system that has to fall back on the notions of reflexivity and ideology in order to explain the social and political determination of experience and meaningful conduct.

Providing Freshmen with a Good “Starting-Block”

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikaël De Clercq ◽  
Charlotte Michel ◽  
Sophie Remy ◽  
Benoît Galand
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Student Adjustment ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Pivotal Phase ◽  
Study Program ◽  
Study Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
Intention To Persist

Abstract. Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.

Social-Psychological Models in Labor Motivation Analysis

2004 ◽  
pp. 90-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Surkov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Psychological Approach ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Economic Man ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychological Models ◽  
Social Psychological Approach

Benefits of using social-psychological approach in the analysis of labor motivations are considered in the article. Classification of employees as objects of economic analysis is offered: "the economic man", "the man of the organization", "the social man" and "the asocial man". Related models give the opportunity to predict behavior of the firm in different situations, such as shocks of various nature.

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