Critical Psychology and Society

Observations of society from the critical psychology perspectives

[marikosiegert-blog]

Postmaterial Complacency, Distributive Justice, and Narrative Empathy

"It began to look as if I should be compelled to go to the very poor for my food. [. . . ]. The very poor can always be depended upon. They never turn away the hungry. Time and again, all over the United States, have I been refused food by the big house on the hill; and always have I received food from the little shack down by the creek or marsh, with its broken windows stuffed with rags and its tired faced mother broken with labor. Oh, you charity-mongers! Go to the poor and learn, for the poor alone are the charitable. They neither give nor withhold from their excess. They have no excess." - My Life in the Underworld: A Reminiscence and A Confession by Jack London (1907, p. 18)

**I do not think it is be fair to take a fragment as if it represented the rest, so if you are interested in reading the entire anecdote by Jack London, please click the link above.

There are many things I have been curious for many years, since as early as I was a preteen or since rather recently as I have learned to analyze social issues critically and based on facts, findings and theories. Many of them might have been on the same line of questions since the beginning and have been seen in different lights as I have developed as a person and academic (hopefully...).

Postmaterial complacency is one of them. Maybe, it is not exactly called or termed postmaterial complacency by others, but I have needed an identity to give to my question about why the wealthy are generally more reluctant to give to others than are the less wealthy.

I need help! I don't care!

Postmaterialism and American values

Although I am not sure how relevant it is to the U.S. in the time of Jack London, and I cannot say for sure that the content of this blog entry is irrelevant to other postmaterialist nations of today, I will limit my discussion to the U.S. value profile and its possible association with postmaterial complacency.

I think it is safe to classify the U.S. as a postmaterialist nation . According to social scientist Ronald Inglehart, postmaterialism is a state in which people's priority has shifted from economic growth and material gain to less survival-focused goals characterized by self-expression and autonomy (e.g., freedom of speech, environmental protection, anti-discrimination, etc.). Thomas and Peterson (2014) categorize the U.S. national values orientation, utilizing Schwartz' value surveys, as maximum individualism, mastery (e.g., dominance and exploitation of resources), affective autonomy (i.e., "pursuit of positive experiences"; p. 56), and intellectual autonomy (i.e., "independent pursuit of own ideas"; p. 56). All of these seem to facilitate the postmaterial values, with less focus on interpersonal cooperation and interdependence, as suggested by Kağıtçıbaşı (2005). It is naïve, however, to think that individuals share the same value systems as their nation does as a whole, so the American people should not be generalized with these 'labels.'

I would like to give these characteristic labels a face. I think it is crucial that we avoid making our history and events mere collections of alphabets, statistics or numbers. By forgetting the names and faces, or by forgetting the fact that these histories and events involved people with names and faces, I think we dehumanize ourselves and allow ourselves to submit to cruelty and apathy. Storytelling, therefore, is powerful in understanding the analyze history and facts; what history has excluded human factors?

Distributive (in)justice and a sense of entitlement

I think that in individualist cultures, people tend to associate wealth with legitimate entitlement for those who have earned it. Those who have inherited it may inherit the wealth and the sense of entitlement, for wealth often comes with power and authority. In our capitalist society, money can buy to manipulate and control resources, including human motivation and behaviors. If they think they are entitled to the power, in the culture of mastery, individualism and autonomy, and their sense of entitlement has somehow been reinforced time and time again, it would be very difficult for them to examine their actions, motivation, and belief system.

While I would not defend people's false sense of entitlement, especially when it is used to harm and exploit others, but at least, by bringing the 'labels' down to a more individual level that has a recognizable, familiar 'face,' I think we can understand why some people may do what they do and why some nations may choose certain acts, which is the threshold of a change toward equality, justice, morality, and peace. I believe, after all, our reality consists of the 'self' and 'others' and that we see the 'others' through our own lens (and we need to be aware of the danger of 'merging of us and them').

Detachment

If a person, group or nation feels entitled to wealth, the need to share/distribute it may not be clearly recognized and acted upon accordingly. Asymmetrical power distribution surely would give one side a sense of superiority through abundant access to resources. Through power distribution, or redistribution, they may face a sense of grief by losing what they have possessed, which may be an underlying force for economic system justification (ESJ) ideology, which may be reinforced by the postmaterial values. Who wants to feel powerless? And they detach themselves from the have-nots. Or is this a bit of a stretch to explain why the wealthy are reluctant to share their wealth?

Bystander nonintervention and empathy

From a perspective of bystander nonintervention and bystander-victim relationships, ingroup identity may facilitate the helping/intervening behaviors (Pittinsky & Diamante, 2015); if the wealth could identify the poor as the member of their group (e.g., community, society, etc.), they are more likely to try to help the poor. In many cases of class struggles, I think the development of empathy at the individual level, often through intergroup contact, is vital in their resolution. While policy change can shape individual behavior and morality, some behavioral changes may be mere results of impression management.

There are two suggestions I would like to make: One is that we try to understand history and others' experiences as our own narratives, so we can somehow learn to relate to them. Empathy and perspective-taking, I believe, is key to peaceful resolution of current power struggles that have driven disparities in humanity. The other is that we try to create a normative environment that attenuate injustice. De Oliveira, Guimond, and Dambrun (2012) found that hierarchy-attenuating (HA) normative environment is likely to reduce abuse of power by individuals in high power positions while hierarchy-enhancing (HE) normative environment is likely to encourage social dominance orientation (SDO) and ESJ ideology. I think that the latter is much dependent on the former.

References

De Oliveira, P., Guimond, S., & Dambrun, M. (2012). Power and legitimizing ideologies in hierarchy enhancing vs. hierarchy-attenuating environments. Political Psychology, 33(6), 867-885. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00909.x

Kağıtçıbaşı, C. (2005). Autonomy and relatedness in cultural context: Implications for self and family. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 36(4), 403-422. doi: 10.1177/0022022105275959

London, J. (1907). My life in the underworld. Cosmopolitan, 43, 17-22.

Pittinsky, T. L. & Diamante, N. (2015). Global bystander nonintervention. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 21(2), 226-247. doi: 10.1037/pac0000076

Thomas & Peterson. (2014). Comparing cultures: Systematically describing cultural differences. In, D. C. Thomas & M. F. Peterson (Eds.), Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts (3rd ed., pp. 42-66). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

[marikosiegert-blog]

Facebook Use, Personality, and Power

According to a study on relations of Facebook use, Five-Factor Model (FFM: Digman, 1990, as cited in Jenkins-Guarnieri, Wright, & Johnson, 2013), and attachment pattern conducted by Jenkins-Guarnieri et al. (2013), attachment insecurity was found negatively correlated with extraversion and positively correlated with neuroticism. Extraversion, then, showed a positive correlation with interpersonal competency and Facebook use while neuroticism did not show significant correlations with either (Jenkins-Guarnieri et al., 2013). Their conclusion, based on the model they suggested, was that attachment insecurity would moderate individuals' Facebook use intensity (Jenkins-Guarnieri et al., 2013).

Two years later, Hart, Nailling, Bizer, and Collins (2015) published their study on the topic to present an association between attachment insecurity and intense Facebook use. Hart et al. (2015) argue that individuals with attachment anxiety tend to actively post on Facebook in order to seek feedback/attention and social support while those who with attachment avoidance showed low levels of Facebook activity, potentially due to low levels of extraversion. Fox and Rooney (2015) found positive correlations between intense Facebook use and narcissism, with a possible association with low self-esteem in the form of self-objectification.

The relationships of online behaviors and their social implications, especially aggressive behaviors, have been increasingly studied in recent years with advances in technology, as we have become exposed to numerous cases of cyber-bullying and cyber-aggression (Sugarman & Willoughby, 2013). In this blog entry, I would like to narrow the scope of discussion down to the following two topics: 1) how does Facebook activity meet the needs of certain personality types? and 2) how may a high level of Facebook activity be correlated with power-seeking behaviors?

1) How does Facebook activity meet the needs of certain personality types?

Jenkins-Guarnieri et al. (2013) asked the research participants to rate their own levels of the Big Five personality factors (i.e., neuroticism, openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness), which is necessary susceptible to response biases: Some may have reflected their ideal personality traits on their responses. While the extroverts in this study showed high levels of Facebook use, they may indeed have attachment anxiety, or low self-esteem, as Hart et al. (2015) contend.

As Arnett (2000) argued, the emerging adulthood is a critical phase in modern adolescents and young adults' identity development process. As competency and independence tend to be perceived as socially favorable characteristics in Western cultures, a perceived sense of incompetency learned through unsatisfactory social relations or academic achievement may drive these young adults to attempt to 'mask' their feeling of defeat by high activity on social media, about which Marshall, Lefringhausen and Ferenczi (2015) state in their study that self-reported data from individuals with narcissistic personality traits need more objective means of measurement. It is based on my personal impression that I support Hart et al. (2015) in that these individuals may feel compelled to engage in feedback-seeking behavior to quell their anxiety and sense of inadequacy.

Low self-esteem and narcissistic personality are believed to be associated per the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). An in-depth study on relationships among the Big Five personality inventory and Facebook behaviors by Marshall et al. (2015) conclude that; extraverts use Facebook frequently to communicate about their achievements and to disseminate information, and that they showed higher self-esteem; neurotic individuals may be driven to post for validation from others; individuals with openness often posted about intellectual topics and to disseminate information; conscientious people showed higher self-esteem not particularly related to their Facebook behavior; people with agreeableness liked and commented on others' post often and showed a significant negative correlation with narcissism.

2) how may a high level of Facebook activity be correlated with power-seeking behaviors?

Marshall et al. (2015) generally contend that frequent posting on Facebook is motivated by the need for validation, self-expression, communication, and dissemination of information. In terms of power-seeking behavior, there is an emerging body of studies on narcissistic behaviors on social media. In the study by Marshall et al. (2015), narcissism and neuroticism showed higher motivation for validation when compared to other personality traits. Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by:

Impairments in self functioning (a or b): a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem. b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations. AND

Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b): a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others. b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others‟ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain

Pathological personality traits (antagonism in particular), characterized by: a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others.

In my personal impression, high Facebook use, especially when it is accompanied by personal branding and self-promotion, appears like a sign of self-objectification, in which individuals see and promote their values primarily in their surface-level characteristics (e.g., physical appearance, job-related/academic performance) instead of deep-level characteristics (e.g., personal values, passions, capabilities). This is in itself characteristic of narcissism in that individuals seek to gain more power or social position through branding of themselves or of others, and that they may see self and others merely as tools/objects to access their needs, showing a lack of empathetic/humanizing capabilities. Carpenter (2012) states narcissistic individuals high in grandiosity/exhibitionism (GE) particularly use Facebook frequently for self-promotion, which is often accompanied by aggression and high criticism-sensitivity associated with entitlement/exploitativeness (EE).

While individuals with neuroticism may also seek validation through Facebook posts, the differences between neurotic individuals and narcissistic individuals in their Facebook behaviors (Marshall et al., 2015) should be noted. Shown below are correlations between individuals personality traits (i.e., neurotic or narcissistic) and the topics and motives of their Facebook posts:

Neuroticism: posts on romantic partners -.09, posts on children .02, self-expression -.01, communication .05, information .10

Narcissism: posts on romantic partners -.06, posts on children -.06, self-expression .13, communication -.02, information .02

A stark difference in the number of the 'Likes' and comments has been revealed (neuroticism .01, narcissism .15), which Carpenter (2012) explains that narcissistic individuals may deliberately post sensational posts in order to gain attention. High GE and EE individuals do tend to have a greater number of 'friends' on Facebook with frequent sending and accepting of friend requests (Carpenter, 2012). While the shallow relationships that may lead to an increase in the number of 'Likes' and comments, which they may translate into social support or a sense of power, such positive reactions to their posts may eventually be moderated by their repeated aggression and criticism-sensitivity, antisocial behavior, derogatory remarks on others' opinions and/or beliefs, excessive self-focus, and detached communication (Carpenter, 2012).

Self-esteem is highly valued in American culture, which also values self-sufficiency, individualism, independence, and mastery (Schwartz, 2006). Self-focus or self-promotion generally is not perceived favorably in collectivist cultures that value social harmony, and the display of achievements or self-esteem may be seen as arrogance and socially disruptive (Schwartz, 2006). Some U.K.-based scholars have noticed increasing narcissism in British adolescents' online behaviors.

A greater sense of self-sufficiency, however, may be pricy if it enables individuals to dehumanize others and self; human development occurs in society and through socialization in various social settings. Often, we deepen our awareness and knowledge about ourselves, others and the world through such social connections, learn to regulate our detrimental/harmful behaviors, and learn who we are.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).  Washington DC: Author.

Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55(5), 469-80.

Carpenter, C. J. (2012). Narcissism on Facebook: Self-promotional and anti-social behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 52(4), 482-486. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.11.01

Fox, J., & Rooney, M. C. (2015). The Dark Triad and trait self-objectification as predictors of men’s use and self-presentation behaviors on social networking sites. Personality and Individual Differences, 76, 161-165. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.12.017

Hart, J., Nailling, E., Bizer, G. Y., Collins, C. K. (2015). Attachment theory as a framework for explaining engagement with Facebook. Personality and Individual Differences, 77, 33-40.

Jenkins-Guarnieri, M. A., Wright, S. L., & Johnson, B. J. (2013). The interrelations among attachment style, personality traits, interpersonal competency, and Facebook use. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2(2), 117-131. doi: 10.1037/a0030946

Marshall, T. C., Lefringhausen, K., & Ferenczi, N. (2015). The big-five, self-esteem and narcissism as predictors of the topics people write about in Facebook status updates. Personality and Individual Differences, 85, 35-40. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.04.039

Schwartz, S. (2006). A theory of cultural value orientations: Explication and application. Comparative sociology, 5(2-3), 137-182.

Sugarman, D. B. & Willoughby, T. (2013). Technology and violence: Conceptual issues raised by the rapidly changing social environment. Psychology of Violence, 3(1), 1-8. doi:  10.1037/a0031010

[marikosiegert-blog]

Pop Psychology: Warning for the 'Recovering'

I get a lot of inspirations and ideas for my blog entries from social media posts. I see the world is a tough place to live in: With modernization and advances in technology, it may have become more difficult than ever to set up clear personal boundaries. Modernization theorists in the 1960s and 1970s argued that with socioeconomic development, separation and psychological independence from families would increase (Kagitcibasi, 2002), while technology has made social support and platform for self-expression readily accessible. I feel that the widespread use of social media would lead to significant social change, as discussed by Barker (2012) or Konnikova (2013), for example. We are living in the time in which we can easily separate ourselves from the unpleasant while seeking comfort from afar - often without physical or even emotional proximity. I think this would affect our sense of who we are and what we need, and without knowing these, how could we find life satisfaction?

And here we are, surrounded by the pop psych self-help books, available in the store and online. A renowned researcher Dr. John C. Norcross stated, "Ninety-five percent of self-help books are published without any scientific evidence to support that they work as self-help" (Meyers, 2008, para. 6). As a former avid user of various self-help books, I can recall some of the seemingly popular beliefs/statements/claims to boost one's self-esteem, emotional stability, etc., including:

"If someone doesn't accept you for who you are, it is their problem."

"Do whatever you want, and stop caring about what others think of you."

"Screw everyone; this is me."

etc., etc.....

These are powerful statements that may be helpful for people who do not see the worth in themselves, or those who let others treat them like 'doormats.' Aren't they, however, destructive at the same time?

We have the need for autonomy and independence, which are important factors for personal growth, especially in Western cultures, but when I hear these statements, I cannot help but to be concerned about unhealthy separation of self from others and sense of entitlement. To put it differently, we should be able to respect our autonomy without condemning others' or bashing others. Could we be more interdependent on others without threatening our sense of autonomy? Absolutely. If being who we are requires rejecting the autonomy of others, I would think it is pretty sad (just in my opinion), because no matter what we do for a living or have done in the past, we would need other people, as evidenced in social media posts and our general online behavior (and Barkers' report mentioned earlier). Kagitcibasi should also agree (not that it would matter to everyone...).

Additionally, a bit of sensationalization should be expected in the commercialized books for the general public, even if they were written by someone with a Ph.D. or M.D.. Publishers need to sell their books, and often, books with only facts and objective observations are too 'dry' for their readership. Not many people enjoy reading technical journal articles, right?

I will not completely dismiss the efficacy of self-help books, but I will not vindicate for them, either. Please use them with caution and moderation, whether you are recovering or not, but especially if you are recovering from difficult life situations.

Peace.

References

Barker, E. (2012, November 13). Posting too much on Facebook is a sign of emotional instability. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com.au/why-people-post-so-many-annoying-personal-status-updates-2012-11

Kagitcibasi, C. (2002). A model of family change in cultural context. In W. J. Lonner, D. L. Dinnel, S. A. Hayes, & D. N. Sattler (Eds.), Online readings in psychology and culture (Unit 13, Chapter 1). Bellingham, WA: Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University.

Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-psychology-of-online-comments

Meyers, L. (2008). Recommended readings: Psychologists share the contents of their self-help books. Monitor on Psychology, 39(1), 26. Available online at: http://www.apa.org/monitor/jan08/recommended.aspx

[marikosiegert-blog]

Anger, Suicide and Peace (Brainstorming)

This is halfway a 'note to self' and halfway just a trace of my brainstorming process. My biggest academic interest is the psychology of violence -the root, systems, implications and resolution of violence. This has probably been my passion for longer than I think - by the time I started to write my Bachelor's thesis, I had been devouring books and articles on war, conflict resolution, military operation and history, and political systems of inequality. Indeed, I wrote my thesis on conflict resolution in Africa in 2005.

I have recently read about the evolutionary aspect of emotions (remember Darwin?). What this means that emotions may emerge for survival - physical and psychological. The fight-or-flight response is probably a good example of both physical/neurological and psychological basis for evolutionary aspects of emotions.

Has any of you ever wondered why negative feelings/emotions tend to linger longer than do positive ones? I do not have any data at hand to show how common it is for people to feel bad longer and in a more significant way when compared to how they feel good, but I assume that many people can relate to it - I sure can. If we assume that emotions exist to serve their evolutionary purposes, and that most of the humans are actually more susceptible to negative emotions, including anger and sadness, could we possibly then draw that we may be innately, or subconsciously, driven to desire to live?

I just submitted my Master's thesis on military suicide prevention yesterday, which emphasized, among other factors, the role of uncontrollable anger in the development of suicidality. Uncontrollable anger is destructive - either to others or to self, or both in some cases, but why destroy what is alive? When would 'living' become too painful to bear or to desire for?

Significant cognitive dissonance? Fluid vulnerable theory (Rudd, 2005) posits that adverse childhood experiences may increase the baseline risk for suicidality, making individuals with exposure to early exposure to adversities vulnerable to suicide in presence of triggers. There may be people whose baseline suicide risks are much higher than others - those who may constantly feel empty, helpless or hopeless, which may have been learned early on in their lives (e.g., neglected children). When they complete suicide, and I choose to use the term complete to emphasize its often long, strenuous process, it is not rare that it is after they have made peace with themselves, having let go of anger or disappointment. Maybe to them, the gap was too big to fill, has always been perceived to be, and they decided it always will.

Doesn't it hurt to force yourself to try to forgive someone when you are not ready? Doesn't it hurt to give up anger? I have felt more than a handful of times that I had hung onto anger in order to survive and press on in stressful situations. Does this, however, not give us a hint that anger may be a very useful tool to moderate one's suicidality?

I should never generalize anything, especially when I have not backed it up with evidence, but I would like to hear what you think on this.

Thanks. :)

P.S. I am thinking of applying this concept to synthesize a international conflict resolution theory. I hope it is reasonable....

Reference

Rudd, M. D. (2006). Fluid vulnerability theory: A cognitive approach to understanding the process of acute and chronic suicide risk. In, T.E. Ellis (Ed.), Cognition and Suicide: Theory, Research, and Therapy (pp. 355–368). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

[marikosiegert-blog]

Anger and Forgiveness

I often see posts on social media about the 'blame' - e.g., "If you don't ------, it's your problem, not mine." Although I agree to some extent that blame and responsibilities should always not fall onto those who perceive rejection, injustice, or condemnation, I wonder whether the posters of these messages are not angry, vengeance, or self-righteous at all in posting them publicly.

While condemnation on moral transgression tends to facilitate a sense of remorse in the 'transgressor,' self-reflection on their own morally unjust behavior and actions, and attitudinal/behavioral changes, public condemnation and humiliation have been found to have different effects, including "anger, hostility, and vengeful urges" (Combs, Campbell, Jackson, & Smith, 2010, p. 128).

When people perceive humiliation or injustice inflicted upon them, they are increasingly likely to engage in justification of their own harmful behaviors and intensification of hostility toward the other (the general aggression model; DeWall, Anderson, & Bushman, 2011). The sense of justice, or rather lack of thereof, is one of the core element of anger and aggression. Moral transgressions - against self and others - have been found correlated with aggressive urges and behaviors - toward self and others - in a military sample (Bryan, Bryan, Morrow, Etienne, & Ray-Sannerud, 2014). To be sure, this may not be applicable to the general public and certain populations with other social/cultural backgrounds, but this suggests some complex interplays between the self and others. What is noteworthy about the findings by Bryan et al. (2014) is that transgressions-self (i.e., betrayal of one's own moral codes) was more strongly correlated with self-aggression than was transgressions-others (i.e., betrayal of one's moral codes by others). DeWall et al. (2011) noted that self-aggression is related to suicidality and depression.

Vindictive urges out of anger and perceived transgression, I believe, can be resolved in a number of ways before they get to us: 1) forgiveness, 2) personal responsibility and acknowledgement of one's own imperfection, and 3) a sense of purpose and mission, to name a few (that I can think of right now). Forgiveness cannot always be brought about merely by one's determination - when you are not ready to forgive, you simply can't. What, then, can help you move toward forgiveness and resolution of anger?

Personal responsibility may mean a variety of things, but here, I would like to focus on its relation with a sense of purpose and mission. It is important that the blame is placed where it belongs - but if I engaged in acts of humiliating the 'transgressor', especially in public, and not seeking peaceful resolution of the situation through diplomatic approaches, I would be to blame for my own anger and action taken on my vengeful urges. Vengeance could only bring self-righteous justice onto oneself; I have experienced it and I was wrong in ever acting in a manner of getting even or 'making them understand what it feels like.' If I had had truly good intentions, I would have chosen not to criticize them no matter what injustice they had done to me. Klein (1991, p. 117, as cited in Combs et al., 2010) noted, "people believe they deserve their shame; they do not believe they deserve their humiliation" - does this set my 'transgressors' apart from other people, and more importantly, me? Definitely not. Note, also, that shame is more self-driven than humiliation, which involves action by others to remind you of your own wrongdoings.

Please take a moment to apply this to your own situations or feelings.

Most of us talk about making peace and making amends. Most of us would choose peace over hatred and violence. We need to make peace, however, from within ourselves, and this cannot be done through vengeful, self-righteous desires, often being released through a lack of self-reflection and self-acceptance. Self-awareness needs a commitment, acceptance of own failure and resolve to press on.

I would like to delve into this matter further in my future posts. Stay tuned.

References

Bryan, A. B. O., Bryan, C. J., Morrow, C. E., Etienne, N., & Ray-Sannerud, B. (2014). Moral injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts in a military sample. Traumatology, 20(3), 154-160. doi: 10.1037/h0099852

Combs, D. J. Y., Campbell, G., Jackson, M., & Smith, R. H. (2010). Exploring the consequences of humiliating a moral transgressor. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 32, 128-143. doi: 10.1080/01973531003738379

DeWall, C. N., Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). The general aggression model: Theoretical extensions to violence. Psychology of Violence, 1(3), 245-258. doi: 10.1037/a0023842

[marikosiegert-blog]

The Role of Cognitions in PTSD Development

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), there are four symptom clusters for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); 1) intrusion 2) avoidance, 3) negative alterations in cognition and mood, and 4) alterations in arousal and reactivity.

Figure 1. PTSD symptom clusters.

It sounds to me like the negative alterations in cognition and mood would mediate other three symptom clusters as shown in Figure 1. According to Davis, Witte, and Weathers (2014), numbness and estrangement (i.e., negative alterations in cognition and mood) showed the strongest correlation with the severity of PTSD symptoms and the development of suicidality. This is in line with the Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide (IPTS), which posits that three conditions - thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability, would increase the likelihood of the emergence of suicidality (Joiner, 2005).

Further pointing to the significance of cognitive processes of traumatic experiences in the development of PTSD symptoms, Hooper, Dorahy, Blampied, and Jordan (2014) conducted a study on 20 adults that had experienced the earthquake in Christchurch in 2011, to find that perceptual processing of traumatic events had an increased correlation with PTSD development 6 months after the earthquake. Conceptual processing was not significantly correlated. This suggests early cognitive interventions following traumatic events might be effective in moderating the PTSD development.

It is important, however, to note that the contexts of the traumatic events could affect survivors coping and adaptation. Was it human-made trauma, or a natural disaster that caused it? Did someone intentionally inflict the suffering on them? Willful acts of evil would reasonably leave bigger, deeper emotional scars. Peter-Hagene and Ullman (2015) contended that in cases of sexual assaults, perpetrators' use of physical violence, and victims' use of alcoholic beverages both mediated the symptom severity of PTSD, while the perpetrators' use of alcoholic beverages and use of physical violence during the assaults were negatively correlated, and perpetrators' use of alcoholic beverages during the assault did not affect victims' PTSD symptom presentation (Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2015). With perpetrators' use of physical violence, victims suffered from a feeling that their lives were in danger, which would be reasonable, and this significantly mediated PTSD symptom severity. Victims' use of alcoholic beverages at the time of assaults presumably contributed to their self-blaming/maladaptive coping behaviors (Peter-Hagene & Ullman, 2015).

What should be done to prevent the victims from developing PTSD, which may be a significant threat to their lives? Adaptive perceptual processing of the traumatic events would be one thing; that whatever the circumstances, the perpetrators decided to act on their urges - whether they may be anger, frustration, sadistic fantasy or needs, etc. The perpetrators and bystanders, needless to say, should not blame the victims. The role of internalized shame and stigma, however, would be one of the core issues to be resolved in order for them to recover.

The psychological vulnerability of abused adults to further abuse may also deserve attention. Gobin and Freyd (2014) argued that individuals who have experienced betrayal trauma early in childhood, which is associated with insecure attachment, were likely to remain impaired in interpersonal relationships, namely due to their inability to discern whom to trust or not to trust (Gobin & Freyd, 2014). A scenario is: Some may drink heavily to escape thier difficult lives, and out of desperation to be saved and rescued, they may trust the wrong ones who may only manipulate them. It is possible to learn how to build and maintain secure relationships later in life, but for that, it would be crucial that they develop a good sense of self-identity and readiness and capability for forgiveness for self and others.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: Author.

Davis, M. T., Witte, T. K., & Weathers, F. W. (2014). Posttraumatic stress disorder and suicidal ideation: The role of specific symptoms within the framework of the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6(6), 610-618. doi: 10.1037/a0033941

Joiner, T. E. (2005). Why people die by suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Gobin, R. & Freyd, J. J. (2014).The impact of betrayal trauma on the tendency to trust. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6(5), 505-511. doi: 10.1037/a0032452

Hooper, A. L., Dorahy, M. J.,Blampied, N. M., & Jordan, J. (2014). Dissociation, perceptual processing, and conceptual processing in survivors of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 6(6), 668-674.  doi: 10.1037/a0037303

Peter-Hagene, L. C. & Ullman, S. E. (2015). Sexual assault-characteristics effects on PTSD and psychosocial mediators: A cluster-analysis approach to sexual assault types. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7(2), 162-170. doi: 10.1037/a0037304

[marikosiegert-blog]

Social Motivations for Shame Expression: A U.S.-Japan Comparison

Something inspired me to watch documentaries on serial killers on YouTube this evening. I think that serial killers are good subjects for psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists,  neurologists, etc. to study. John Wayne Gacy's brain was extracted after a lethal injection on May 10, 1994. Forensic psychiatrists, however, found no defects in his brain structure.

Ted Bundy, electrocuted on January 24, 1989, and Gacy both grew up in extremely chaotic environments. Bundy had believed his mother was his sister until he experienced his first heartbreak in Washington as a college student. The person he had believed was his father was revealed to be his grandfather, who was abusive to his family. Bundy discovered his mother gave birth to him as an unmarried woman, and raised him with her parents who felt ashamed of their daughter for having an illegitimate child. The sense of betrayal and rejection appears to be the underlying force for his hatred toward women and callous, narcissistic personality. He had to be someone. He had to prove himself to the world. I think that ambition without conscience and empathy is very dangerous.

Gacy, whose father longed to have a son after having had a daughter, probably grew up in extreme loneliness as well. Not following the "gender-appropriate" expectations his father had for him, he was often humiliated in front of his sisters. He was incarcerated in prison on his 15-year-term for a sodomy against a 15-year-old male, during which his father died from a medical condition. He attributed his father's death to unbearable shame that he had caused on him through the sodomy charge. He thought he failed his father yet again. While he was discharged after a few months of incarceration (out of 15 years) due to good behavior, he started sexually assaulting and murdering young men and boys.

On reviewing the documentaries on them (and some others too), the narratives of some family members of Bundy's and Gacy's caught my attention. They reflected on what good men they were, what some "minor" troubles they had long prior to their first murders, and how their convictions influenced them. While both killed over 30 people within a few years (1961, and 1974-1978 for Bundy, and 1972-1978 for Gacy), these family members did not express remorse for the victims and their families.

Generally speaking, in collectivist cultures, families of serial killers, or of offenders of any violent crimes or drug-related crimes, would also be persecuted. In Japan, for example, it is very rare for family members of perpetrators of crimes to appear in public to comment on the crimes - partially due to fear of extreme personal attacks and social sanctions, and partially due to a sense of shame.

Studies on cultural variations in self-construals and social cognition (such as Kühnen, Hannover, & Schubert, 2001; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002) argue that individualist cultures are characterized by dispositionalism with low context-dependence, and collectivist ones by situationism with high context-dependence. In other words, people of individualist cultures tend to attribute human behavior and motivations to individual personality or character, while people of collectivist cultures tend to seek reasons of human behavior and motivations in the situations.

When the two Japanese hostages, Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, were beheaded by the Islamic State in January 2015, the father of Yukawa's apologized to the general public before he said anything else, stating that he was sorry that his son's reckless action caused the Japanese people much distress, and for Goto, who had left for Syria to rescue Yukawa, and his family for causing such a tragedy. He did not defend Yukawa. The wife of Goto's expressed gratitudes to the Japanese government and all involved in the matter for the hard work. To be sure, neither of them was a criminal, but in the mind of a great number of the Japanese, they were the ones that caused the entire society quite anguish and shame, and their families owed apologies to the people.

The same sentiments have been often expressed when violent crimes are reported in Japan - that the criminals' families should be ashamed and be forever ostracized, or that they deserve an-eye-for-an-eye sort of revenge. They seek the responsilibility in the criminals themselves and their families - those who let them commit crimes. The families of Bundy and Gacy appeared to have attributed their criminality and the consequences to their personalities, not necessarily linking it to the "family responsibility" or a feeling of shame or guilt, not for me to determine that they did not experience deep regrets and remorse (shame is often associated with one's character, or flaws of thereof, and guilt with one's actions).

It probably is not appropriate to draw a conclusion on this very small sample, and my limited and very subjective views, but I thought this would be a very interesting observation to make.

References

Kühnen, U., Hannover, B., & Schubert, B. (2002). The semantic-procedural interface model of the self: The role of self-knowledge for context-dependent versus context-independent modes of thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(3),  397-409. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.80.3.397

Nixon, A. (Producer) & Unknown (Director). (1999). John Wayne Gacy: A monster in disguise. [Motion Picture]. The United States: A & E Home Video.

Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2001). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128(1), 3-72. doi: 10.1037//0033-2909.128.1.3

Unknown (Producer) & Unknown (Director). (2007). Ted Bundy: A natural born killer. [Motion Picture]. The United States: A & E Home Video.

[marikosiegert-blog]

Ethics and Cultural Competence

“Helplessness and isolation are the core experiences of psychological trauma. Empowerment and reconnection are the core experiences of recovery.” - Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery

Cultural competence is becoming bigger of a concern in the field of psychology (and apparently, social work as well, and probably sociology too) in recent years. I personally welcome this trend because of the subtle ways that cultures influence and may shape our attitudes, beliefs, and behavior (including cognition, emotion, and motivation). I do believe cultural competence is of value to improve the efficacy of our profession (whether it is psychology, social work, or sociology).

Making a Wish in Rwanda: The Restoration of Hope posed some critical questions on the efficacy of cultural competence, however. Wood (2007), the author of this article, argued that it would be important that we should believe in the "basic rightness of our intuitive act" (p. 223) without being too entangled on the ethical concerns around cultural competence.

I generally try to be careful in reading articles like this one; a qualitative study discussing only one case/incident that is written in a style of a personal account. I am not against the use of qualitative research methods, to be clear. I was getting concerned that this article might be too subjective and lack objectivity to examine the efficacy of the "simple Western tradition [of social work]" (Wood, 2007, p. 220) or of culturally sensitive approach as I was further reading the article.

To summarize the content of the article, it is about Wood's experience in Rwanda with a woman named Esperance, who spoke little and did not socialize with other members of the community. Rwanda had maintained a somewhat peaceful culture between the Tutsi and the Hutu, two primary tribes in the country. The Belgian colonization started in 1916 and the French started to intervene in the country in the 1950s, which created social disharmony, but still, the two tribes managed to coexist until 1994 - the outbreak of the genocide. What has remained? Deaths, loss of skilled workers who either fled or were killed, massive cases of rape against women who now live with HIV, and 600,000 orphans living in 800,000 child-headed households (Wood, 2007).

Esperance was one of the women who survived the genocide. Wood and her colleague learned that she had never celebrated her birthday primarily due to political reasons (see Wood, 2007, for further discussion), and decided to throw a party - in an American way with cake and candles. Wood (2007) recollected some of the ethical questions she had on the decision: her autonomy did not come into the discussion, they did not know her culture or customs, nor her language.

In her iconic work Trauma and Recovery, Herman (1997, as cited in Wood, 2007), argued that these three conditions were necessary for recovery from trauma: 1) safety (and stabilization), 2) remembrance and mourning, and 3) reconnection. Wood (2007) contended that Esperance probably had experienced the first two, and the birthday celebration completed the condition by providing the last one for her. Esperance, before blowing out her candles, made a wish that every lost soul and every survivor, along with the Americans, would be happy together. She then said to the crowd of her family and friends present at the party that she would choose to be happy from that day on.

I think that it is important that we realize even if this case might be a "miracle" case with low generalizability or replicability, we should ask ourselves humble questions on whether our actions would be ethical or justifiable, as Wood (2007) proposed. This appears to me like one of the ethical cases where boundary-crossing should well be justified or even embraced, yet I wonder what would have happened if Esperance had been harmed by their "culturally incompetent" practice. I would be too scared to take the risk, but would her traditional ways have been helpful? This would be one of the questions that psychologists (or social workers or sociologists) in the cross-cultural fields should remember to ask themselves.

This article left me with an unsettling feeling, but in a good way. In this particular case, the ‘culturally incompetent’ practice had a lasting, positive impact on this one woman and her community. Sometimes, I think that we may turn back to the good ol' Carl Rogers - to explore the power of congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding.

References

Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and recovery. New York: Basic Books.

Wood, S. A. (2007). Making a wish in Rwanda: The restoration of hope. Journal of Women and Social Work, 22(2), 220-225. doi: 10.1177/0886109907299059