scholarly journals Medical Dehumanisation in Sylvia Plath's Late Poems

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edit Gálla

The denial of the humanness of certain individuals or groups has long been a source of violent conflicts, atrocities, and exploitation. It was only recently, however, that the more subtle and implicit forms of dehumanisation attracted critical attention. In certain social contexts, any individual can be subjected to treatment that negates his or her human qualities.The medical encounter can be identified as a situation in which the individual often feels deprived of human qualities. Medical dehumanisation is often alluded to in Sylvia Plath’s late poems, but it is explicitly foregrounded in “Tulips” and “The Surgeon at 2a.m.” While the first poem depicts the process of dehumanisation from the perspective of the patient complicit in her objectification, the second conveys the dehumanising attitudes of the medical practitioner. Through the close reading of these poems, this paper argues that medical dehumanisation turns individuals, not into machines which can never completely lose their functionality, but into functionless, inert matter.

Author(s):  
Tom Woodin

A significant body of written work was produced by older people in the 1970s and 1980s reflecting back on the early twentieth century. Through the individual voice, wider social contexts were explored. Writers focused upon some key themes in order to achieve this, including childhood, work, family, the individual and politics to achieve this. The insistent belief in care and community in times of hardship is understood as a contradictory structure of feeling which spread widely during this time. Contrary to ideal type definitions of community, a close reading of texts reveals actual meanings and practices which have often been ignored in the historical record. Silences and tensions are also explored.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-31
Author(s):  
Francisco Xavier Morales

The problem of identity is an issue of contemporary society that is not only expressed in daily life concerns but also in discourses of politics and social movements. Nevertheless, the I and the needs of self-fulfillment usually are taken for granted. This paper offers thoughts regarding individual identity based on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. From this perspective, identity is not observed as a thing or as a subject, but rather as a “selfillusion” of a system of consciousness, which differentiates itself from the world, event after event, in a contingent way. As concerns the definition  of contents of self-identity, the structures of social systems define who is a person, how he or she should act, and how much esteem he or she should receive. These structures are adopted by consciousness as its own identity structures; however, some social contexts are more relevant for self-identity construction than others. Moral communication increases the probability that structure appropriation takes place, since the emotional element of identity is linked to the esteem/misesteem received by the individual from the interactions in which he or she participates.


2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick A. R. Jones ◽  
Helen C. Spence-Jones ◽  
Mike Webster ◽  
Luke Rendell

Abstract Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa V. Giles ◽  
Michael S. Koehle ◽  
Brian E. Saelens ◽  
Hind Sbihi ◽  
Chris Carlsten

Abstract Background The physical environment can facilitate or hinder physical activity. A challenge in promoting physical activity is ensuring that the physical environment is supportive and that these supports are appropriately tailored to the individual or group in question. Ideally, aspects of the environment that impact physical activity would be enhanced, but environmental changes take time, and identifying ways to provide more precision to physical activity recommendations might be helpful for specific individuals or groups. Therefore, moving beyond a “one size fits all” to a precision-based approach is critical. Main body To this end, we considered 4 critical aspects of the physical environment that influence physical activity (walkability, green space, traffic-related air pollution, and heat) and how these aspects could enhance our ability to precisely guide physical activity. Strategies to increase physical activity could include optimizing design of the built environment or mitigating of some of the environmental impediments to activity through personalized or population-wide interventions. Conclusions Although at present non-personalized approaches may be more widespread than those tailored to one person’s physical environment, targeting intrinsic personal elements (e.g., medical conditions, sex, age, socioeconomic status) has interesting potential to enhance the likelihood and ability of individuals to participate in physical activity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 220-231
Author(s):  
Carmel Cefai

In contrast to the earlier understandings of resilience for the select, invulnerable few, an ecological perspective provides the opportunity for all children to develop resilience given resilience-enhancing, protective social contexts. In this chapter, the author explores a transactional-ecological perspective of resilience in the context of educational systems, underlining the limitations of an overreliance on the individual in resilience building. The chapter presents a transactional, whole-school, resilience framework for educational systems informed by the research evidence, focusing on both curricular competence-building and contextual processes across multiple systems. The chapter concludes with an illustration of a recent resilience program, RESCUR Surfing the Waves, informed by this approach.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Shivangi Nigam ◽  
Niranjana Soperna

Violence against women is linked to their disadvantaged position in the society. It is rooted in unequal power relationships between men and women in society and is a global problem which is not limited to a specific group of women in society. An adolescent girl’s life is often accustomed to the likelihood of violence, and acts of violence exert additional power over girls because the stigma of violence often attaches more to a girl than to the  perpetrator. The experience of violence is distressing at the individual emotional and physical level. The field of research and programmes for adolescent girls has traditionally focused on sexuality, reproductive health, and behaviour, neglecting the broader social issues that underpin adolescent girls’ human rights, overall development, health, and well-being. This paper is an endeavour to address the understated or disguised form of violence which the adolescent girls experience within the social contexts. The parameters exposed under this research had been ignored to a large extent when it comes to studying the dimension of violence under the social domain. Hence, the researchers attempted to explore this camouflaged form of violence and discovered some specific parameters such as: Diminished Self Worth and Esteem, Verbal Abuse, Menstruation Taboo and Social Rigidity, Negligence of Medical and Health Facilities and Complexion- A Prime Parameter for Judging Beauty. The study was conducted in the districts of Haryana (India) where personal interviews were taken from both urban and rural adolescent girls (aged 13 to 19 years) based on  a structured interview schedule. The results revealed that the adolescent girls, both in urban as well as rural areas were quite affected with the above mentioned issues. In urban areas, however, due to the higher literacy rate, which resulted in more rational thinking, the magnitude was comparatively smaller, but the difference was still negligible.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. I-IV
Author(s):  
Sarah Geber ◽  
Tobias Frey ◽  
Thomas N. Friemel

Health and health-related behaviours are embedded in social contexts in various ways which comprise both risks and opportunities for health communication. We propose a research agenda on social aspects of health communication and introduce the articles of the present special issue. Owing to the complexity of individuals’ social contexts, the research agenda addresses questions lying at the individual, interpersonal, and societal levels. The issue’s articles cover different and highly relevant questions of this research agenda, ranging from stigmatisation to impression management to collective action and from experimental designs to qualitative interviews and netnography. In sum, the articles demonstrate not only the diversity but also the relevance of academic research on social aspects of health communication. We expect that this topic will continue gaining importance, given the ongoing digitalisation of the media environment and the increasing interconnectedness of producers and users, doctors and patients, and experts and laypersons.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 1737-1741
Author(s):  
Rita Loloçi ◽  
Orneda Gega Hoxha

In this study, we will try to explain the correlation that exists between social ethics and personal ethics. Today’s challenges of human society in the field of ethics, morality and consciousness are not the same in different eras and in nations or groups of states. All three of these domains move more slowly than other processes, but are indispensable in everyday life. State authority in constantly way strive to create legal rules, but their non-compliance with ethic, principles of morality and conscience create major problems in contemporary development. Rapid contemporary developments, especially those in the field of technology and science have brought other concepts to social and personal ethics, but the necessity of their presence always adapting to other conditions has been felt. Today’s man seeks to understand it more in the form of ethics and social education. For example: nudity, morality principles to this phenomenon have changed from generation to generation, once considered shame and today as something private. The reality of the moral and conceptual problems that human and society have had over law, the rights and ethics have changed, concepts have been overthrown, and the way how people have been judged for different situations has evolved. Individual’s education in the traditional societies have been very important issue in his/ her life. That was a lifelong learning process instead. Education’s main purpose was to help the individual during his/her life so that he/she was not only responsible and aware of the environment, but to prepare the individual to fit into real life. In the actual society there are different points of views as far as the moral and civilizing education bonds are concerned. A mutual environment asks for mutual values, but on the other hand it is assumed the need to understand, accept and support even the values which may be different from the individual ones. In other words, the civil education has to treat moral as a separate issue, even though there are different opinions like: moral is a personal choice, moral is given by God, moral is a social agreement, etc. What we should emphasize is the fact that dealing with similar points of view is as important as debating against the opposite ones. It would be very positive if this could be achieved for a common understanding. But does everyone understand what moral, social and personal ethic is? Another question adds to this one: How is the problem of moral going to be treated? And is it necessary to set tasks or duties on moral as well? What features must moral education have in a view of the evolution of society as whole in terms of a new worldview? Today humanity is on the rise and is heading towards great organisation, but one must keep in mind that within this uniformity there is also diversity to be respected. The new worldview must be open to new progress and thinking not only from the content but also from the form.


1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Brustad ◽  
Michelle Ritter-Taylor

Psychological processes in sport are inextricably linked to the social contexts within which they occur. However, research and practice in applied sport psychology have shown only marginal concern for the social dimensions of participation. As a consequence of stronger ties to clinical and counseling psychology than to social psychology, the prevailing model of intervention in applied sport psychology has been individually centered. Focus at the individual level has been further bolstered by cognitive emphases in modem psychology. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for a balanced consideration of social and personal influences. Four social psychological dimensions of interest will be explored, including athletic subculture membership; athletic identity concerns; social networks of influence; and leadership processes. The relevance of these forms of influence will be examined in relation to applied concerns in the areas of athlete academic performance, overtraining and burnout, and disordered eating patterns. At minimum, consultants need to address contextual and relational correlates of psychological and performance issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Yang Wu ◽  
Xiaoying Yang

Phubbing, defined as paying attention to one's smartphone instead of interacting with other people in social contexts, has become a common phenomenon. However, the determinants of this behavior remain unclear. Therefore, we explored whether fear of missing out mediates the relationship between relative deprivation and phubbing. A sample of 858 college students completed measures to assess relative deprivation, fear of missing out, and phubbing. The results show that relative deprivation was positively correlated with phubbing. Further, fear of missing out fully mediated the relationship between relative deprivation and phubbing, which indicates that college students who perceived more relative deprivation tended to be more prone to experiencing fear of missing out, and thus more vulnerable to phubbing. Our findings extend understanding of the antecedents of phubbing from the individual microlevel to the psychosocial factor macrolevel.


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