Lord of the flies: a psychoanalytic view of the gang and its processes

Gangs are usually seen to exist on the edge of society, in the Mafia, on the street corner, or among those engaged in people- or drug-trafficking. In this article I take a different approach and argue that, especially in response to trauma, gang functioning may be present at the very centre of our society, and is sometimes to be found in governmental, business, public and voluntary sector organisations, as well as the groups and teams within them. Using Nobel-prize winner William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies to give shape to my ideas, I develop a psychoanalytic theory of gang functioning. I draw in particular on Kleinian psychoanalytic ideas as well as concepts from the psychoanalytic study of groups and organisations. I argue that the establishment of the gang involves primitive splitting and projective identification and the perversion of adult authority. I suggest further that gang functioning involves the destruction of the sensory and communicative apparatuses that alert the gang to reality, coupled with the creation of a substitute, false "reality". These features enable the avoidance of painful truths and experiences and facilitate the enactment of hatred that is so characteristic of ganging behaviour.

Vocational training and development of leadership potential of the US and european countries border guards

This article outlines the work on development of leadership potential of the US and separate European countries border guards. It elaborates in detail the significance of the officer leadership potential, importance of the leadership in the border protection system. There are enlightened the main lines of work on development of personal attributes of the border guard officer as a leader, specific features of his leadership skills formation, psychological basis of leadership training. The author discloses the programs of leadership development, being deployed in the Federal Training Center of the US Customs and Border Protection. The "Leadership in a crisis environment" training program is based on the research studies and is supposed to help law enforcement officials to raise the level of leadership skills required in crisis. This program focuses on the basic concepts of communication, cooperation, critical thinking and the features of decision-making. It provides for the creation of an environment that shapes the ability of participants to apply leadership qualities, interpersonal communication and decision-making skills in a crisis situation. In its turn, the "Leadership through Understanding Human Behavior" training program helps participants better understand themselves, interpersonal dynamics, and how their strengths and weaknesses and roles in working groups and teams affect mission outcomes. The program provides for the development of self-consciousness, the ability to recognize behavioral styles to establish relationships, required for the creation of more effective working groups and teams. There presented the topics of the "Security and Border Management Courses for Senior Leaders" for middle and senior border officers at the OSCE Border Management Staff College. It is found that in order to develop the leadership potential of border officials, foreign countries apply an integrated approach to training, paying attention to the formation of analytical thinking, the acquisition of professional management skills and abilities. In the training methodology, theoretical and practical classes, situational tasks, business games, trainings are widely used. Taking into account foreign experience, in order to increase the managerial level of future border guard officers, it is proposed to familiarize them with what it means to be a leader, how to organize work in a team, how to manage subordinates and be responsible for leading the border unit. There also outlined the importance of research on the leadership potential of the border guard officer, leadership in the border protection system, the characteristics of the officer as a leader of the border unit. Key words: vocational training, leadership, leadership potential, border guard officer, management, border protection.

Evaluación, diagnóstico e intervención en psicología organizacional: nivel grupo

This book is a contribution to the field of Organizational Psychology and related areas. A compilation of some variables of groupal organizational behavior was carried out. From different perspectives, each of the chapters in this work addresses the explanation of organizational behavior in groups and teams, as well as the description of tools that allow it to be evaluated and diagnosed. It also includes some proposals to design interventions, according to the context of the organization and its organizational culture.

Exploration in Teams and the Encouragement Effect: Theory and Experimental Evidence

This paper analyzes a two-person, two-stage model of sequential exploration where both information and payoff externalities exist and tests the derived hypotheses in the laboratory. We theoretically show that, even when agents are self-interested and perfectly rational, the information externality induces an encouragement effect: a positive effect of first player exploration on the optimality of the second player exploring as well. When agents have other-regarding preferences and imperfectly optimize, the encouragement effect is strongest. The explorative nature of the game raises the expected surplus compared with a payoff equivalent public goods game. We empirically confirm our main theoretical predictions using a novel experimental paradigm. Our findings are relevant for motivating and managing groups and teams innovating not only for private but also and especially so, for public goods. This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.