Expression Of Ambivalence Research Articles

Ludic Piety and the Limits of Modesty

Abstract Islamic modesty as a cluster of gendered virtues is typically synonymous with ‘modest’ modes of body-concealing attire and comportment. This article argues, however, that the meaning of ‘modesty’ as currently conceptualised to illuminate the contours of corporeal and sartorial piety is wholly inadequate in its inability to evaluate the more ambivalent expressions of modesty beyond dress as a signal of inner virtue. Although the attention on modest or pious fashion as embraced by women the world over has been as a site for redefining the boundaries of moral and public participation, it does not go far enough in reconfiguring the debates on aesthetics and ethics of ambivalence, ambiguity, and contradiction in Muslim society. Based on a textual reading of the public persona of the Malaysian celebrity entrepreneur Dato Vida and interviews with other Malay-Muslim female entrepreneurs of her contemporary, I posit that the elasticity of modesty relates to a similarly flexible, expansive, and explorative conceptualisation of Islam. Related to this conceptualisation, Dato Vida embodies what I call ludic piety in her presentation and performance of gendered pious excesses within the elastic bounds of modesty.

New World of Gain: Europeans, Guaraní, and the Global Origins of Modern Economy

New World of Gain: Europeans, Guaraní, and the Global Origins of Modern Economy

The Future is Now From Before: Youth Climate Activism and Intergenerational Justice

This paper draws on data from a qualitative study of youth climate activists in Cyprus to explore the notion of temporality implied in how youth interrogate intergenerational relations in the context of their struggle against climate change and the tensions therein. Acknowledging the structural age inequalities that limit their actions, youth activists drew on multiple temporal frames of present, future, and past to delineate a sense of urgency for action to prevent an irreversible catastrophe in the future and to forge a future of hope. In the process, they invited other/older generations to the climate struggle, an opening that came with expressions of ambivalence among some activists.

Unannihilable – Zygmunt Bauman as Analyst and Ambassador of Ambivalence

In Zygmunt Bauman’s work, ambivalence was a topic that recurred explicitly several times in his analyses of modernity and later liquid modernity. This was particularly evident in his book Modernity and Ambivalence (1991). But ambivalence also appears as an underlying theme in later books on life in liquid-modern society. Moreover, Bauman’s sociological perspective itself oozes ambivalence, and many of the topics he explored and embraced throughout his career – such as freedom, morality, immortality and utopia – are themselves fundamental expressions of ambivalence. In addition, Bauman always insisted that the world is not fixed once and for all, but that humans can challenge and change it, and in this way ambivalence is not an ailment to be cured but rather a fact to be accepted. This article explores the theme and leitmotif of ambivalence in the writings of Bauman. The article seeks to provide a concise presentation and discussion of Bauman’s continuous engagement with ambivalence in order to show that sociology perhaps ought to take the topic of ambivalence more seriously than is currently the case.

Beyond antislavery and proslavery: a new term, eventualism, and a refined interpretive approach

ABSTRACT For decades, historians of slavery have grappled with an interpretive constraint. Despite a conviction that the past is as complex as the present, we have operated, to a significant degree, on the simplifying premise that historical attitudes toward enslavement were either antislavery or proslavery—in modified form, immediatist/gradualist or perpetualist. These binary frames have undermined our efforts to write about, and in some ways to discern, attitudes that fell in the ambivalent middle. Through a case study of Henry Clay, one of the most influential politicians operating in this middle range, this article argues for the adoption of a new term, eventualism, that describes one of the most common expressions of ambivalence: declaring opposition to slavery while insisting that, for the sake of the Union, it be left alone and allowed to follow a natural course to extinction. By illustrating the benefits of a refined interpretive approach, immediatism-gradualism-eventualism-perpetualism, along with the benefits of certain interpretive principles that, if more widely adopted, will clarify and enhance inter-scholarly engagements, this article seeks to encourage and enable historians to continue the important work of explicating how and why many Americans, predominantly white Americans, espoused attitudes with significant internal tensions.

Locating disability within online body positivity discourses: an analysis of #DisabledAndCute

ABSTRACT This article situates disability within online body positivity discourses through an analysis of disabled young women’s self-representation practices via the Twitter hashtag #DisabledAndCute. Body positivity seeks to challenge conventional beauty standards by incorporating previously marginalized groups, such as disabled women, into broader “economies of visibility” that includes visibility through social media hashtags. The selfie plays a vital role and is seen as a tool through which to acquire the visibility, “empowerment” and confidence required by postfeminism. Through discursive textual analysis of 133 tweets posted by young women, this article identifies the key themes and characteristics within #DisabledAndCute such as “Love your body” (LYB) discourses and body positivity; the complex relationship between feeling cute and feeling hot; and temporality and futurity. It analyzes how #DisabledAndCute upholds postfeminist LYB discourses but also exposes the limits of LYB discourses through expressions of ambivalence that offer important insights into how gender and disability intersect within body positivity discourses. This article also explores how the tweets both conform to and subvert the temporal logics of the selfie to make the disabled self legible and produce more normative self-representations.

The effect of expression of ambivalence and happiness on creative performance

Leaders frequently assign creative tasks to their employees. Surprisingly, the effect of the emotions that leaders can express during task instructions has been poorly explored by the literature. Using the EASI (Emotion As a Social Information) theory, this paper aims at better understand how the emotions that a leader expresses during task instruction influence the creative performance of the employee. More specifically, this study aims at comparing the effect of expression of ambivalence, happiness and anger. Two laboratory experiments show that in terms of quantity of ideas, an angry leader significantly triggered better results than a happy leader, who triggered better results than an ambivalent leader. In terms of quality of ideas (i.e. their originality and their novelty), there was no difference between a happy and an ambivalent leader. However, a happy leader triggered better ideas than an angry leader. Future studies can explore the mechanisms mediating the effect of expression of emotions on creative performance. This paper extends the EASI theory (Van Kleef, 2009) with the exploration of the effect of expressing mixed emotions (ambivalence) in task instructions.

СМЕРТИ НЕТ, ИЛИ EX TENEBRIS LUX: АПОФАТИЧЕСКАЯ ТРАДИЦИЯ В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ АПОЛЛОНА МАЙКОВА

The research object is an apothaticism as a phenomenon of global art culture. The research subject is an apothatic tradition related to the collision between the day and evening light, images-codes “darkness” and “light”. The research material is based on the poetry by Apollon Maykov, and this year it would be 200 years since his birth. A hermeneutic reconstruction applies to the ethos of life and death, a mythologeme of timelessness in the later poetry of the poet, representing the direction of “pure art” in the literature of the 19th century. Much attention is paid to the poem “Ex tenebris lux”, written ten years before the poet’s death. The research methodology is reduced to a holistic ontohermeneutic analysis aimed at highlighting the apophatic paradigm of this text. Parallels are drawn with Persian poetry, the Sufi tradition, in which black color is significant in its ambivalent expression. In Maykov’s works, black color is associated with the threshold state of a speaker and the way out of liminality. The authors also touch upon Russian folklore, aesthetics and poetics of a fairy tale, in which the “three kingdoms” plot is important in this case. The research results are valuable from the cultural-philosophical positions of understanding the apophaticism of the artistic space of culture, but they can also be used in teaching courses on Russian literature of the 19th century and philosophy.

Ambivalence and Interpersonal Liking: The Expression of Ambivalence as Social Validation of Attitudinal Conflict.

Literature on attitude similarity suggests that sharing similar attitudes enhances interpersonal liking, but it remains unanswered whether this effect also holds for ambivalent attitudes. In the present research, we shed light on the role attitudinal ambivalence plays in interpersonal liking. Specifically, we examine whether people express ambivalence strategically to generate a positive or negative social image, and whether this is dependent on the attitudinal ambivalence of their perceiver. We test two alternative hypotheses. In line with the attitude-similarity effect, people should express ambivalence toward ambivalent others to enhance interpersonal liking, as sharing ambivalence might socially validate the latter’s experience of attitudinal conflict. On the other hand, people might express more univalence, as ambivalence may drive ambivalent others toward the resolution of their attitudinal conflict, and univalent stances could help to achieve that goal. In two studies (N = 449, 149), people expressed similar attitudes to those of their perceivers, even when the latter experienced attitudinal conflict (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, they composed an essay, the message of which validated their perceiver’s attitudinal conflict (Study 2). In line with these results, we further observe that the more people experienced their ambivalence as conflicting, the more they liked others who similarly experienced attitudinal conflict (Study 1). These findings suggest that the expression of ambivalence can have important interpersonal functions, as it might lead to an enhanced social image when interacting with those coping with attitudinal conflict.

Qualitative investigation of the factors that generate ambivalent feelings in women who give birth after receiving negative results from non-invasive prenatal testing

BackgroundWomen who receive negative results from non-invasive prenatal genetic testing (NIPT) may find that they later have mixed or ambivalent feelings, for example, feelings of accepting NIPT and regretting undergoing the test. This study aimed to investigate the factors generating ambivalent feelings among women who gave birth after having received negative results from NIPT.MethodsA questionnaire was sent to women who received a negative NIPT result, and a contents analysis was conducted focusing on ambivalent expressions for those 1562 women who responded the questionnaire. The qualitative data gathered from the questionnaire were analyzed using the N-Vivo software package.ResultsEnvironmental factors, genetic counseling-related factors, and increased anticipatory anxiety, affected the feeling of ambivalence among pregnant women. Furthermore, pregnant women desired more information regarding the detailed prognosis for individuals with Down syndrome and living with them and/or termination, assuming the possibility that they were positive.ConclusionsThree major interrelated factors affected the feeling of ambivalence in women. Highlighting and discussing such factors during genetic counseling may resolve some of these ambivalences, thereby enhancing the quality of decisions made by pregnant women.

Do I Trust You? Depends on What You Feel: Interpersonal Effects of Emotions on Initial Trust at Zero‐Acquaintance

AbstractThis article explores the interpersonal effects of emotions on stereotype formation and initial trust in zero‐acquaintance interactions. In three experiments, we demonstrate that perceptions of partner sociability, morality, and competence are significantly influenced by emotional expressions and are important predictors of trust. Specifically, we show that in zero‐acquaintance interactions, displays of happiness increase, but displays of anger decrease stereotypes of sociability, morality, and competence. Happiness expressions are also conducive to trust, whereas expressions of anger are detrimental to trust. We further demonstrate that expressions of ambivalence do not affect perceptions of sociability, but decrease perceptions of morality and competence. Overall, expressions of ambivalence have a negative effect on partner trust. Perceptions of morality consistently explain the effect of expressed happiness, anger, and ambivalence on initial trust across the three experiments and different bargaining contexts. Implications for research on emotions and trust in negotiations are discussed.

Introduction

In response to the journal’s inaugural theme of “Discomfort”, the Artists’ Projects section presents two artworks that suggest an understanding of history in modern and contemporary Southeast Asia and a confrontation with systemic belief structures, as well as an active process of excavating stories. They are expressions of ambivalence towards differing histories in Southeast Asia. First, the documentation of live sculptures forming Getah Bening (2015) by Shooshie Sulaiman and Wayan Darmadi offers a glimpse into a secretly located artwork, in which the artists created portraits of three leaders from Southeast Asia’s post-independence history by carving directly onto rubber trees—a plant that has been vital to the region’s economy. Second, Towards Figures of Dedication, and a Flood (2015) is a transcript of a video interview conducted by Tom Nicholson with Grace Samboh with Pak Edhi, Sukarno’s most trusted sculptor, and the artist commissioned to create monuments during Jakarta’s independence era including the iconic Selamat Datang Monument from 1962.

Feature article: Baby factory: Romance and reproduction in Norway’s first sound film

Abstract This article considers expressions of ambivalence at the intersections of gender, industry and urbanity in Norway’s first sound film, Den store barnedåpen (The Great Christening) (Ibsen, 1931). Despite its status as a city film, The Great Christening conveys a subtly anti-industrial message, suggesting that true happiness is to be found at a short but significant distance from the factory. Previous scholarship on gender has considered the innovative depiction of Ibsen’s male protagonist Harald and his soft or domestic masculinity. This article uses close reading and historical research on the family in inter-war Norway to reconsider such characterization, as well as the distinct position of the biological mother in the film. The Great Christening expresses great confidence in Norwegian kinship, fertility and urban possibilities. At the same time, it separates romance and reproduction, keeping its male hero at a distance from the anxious association of working-class mothers and mechanization.

The Defilement of Dina: Uncontrolled Passions, Textual Violence, and the Search for Moral Foundations

The story of Dinah’s violation in Genesis 34 has elicited radically different evaluations among exegetes. The present article attributes these divergent readings to the existence of distinct voices or moral positions in the text, particularly in relation to the issue of intermarriage. Beginning with a synchronic literary and ideological analysis of the narrative, the present reading will examine whether the multi-vocal state of the text should be best understood as an expression of ambivalence, of redactional history, or otherwise. A key tool in this analysis is the moral foundations theory developed by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues. This theory can help shed light on the ideological tendencies and rhetorical techniques reflected in this text, particularly the significance of the repeated references to the defilement of Dinah. This synchronic reading will also suggest the basis for a diachronic analysis of the story, demonstrating how narrative features of the final form of the text offer clues to the scribal tendencies involved in editing it. Finally, these literary, historical, and psychological dimensions are integrated to better contextualize the paradoxical relationship between defilement and ethnicity in the story.

Spatial Dislocation and Affective Displacement: Youth Perspectives on Gentrification in London

AbstractAnalyses of contemporary processes of gentrification have been primarily produced from adult perspectives with little focus on how age affects or mediates urban change. However, in analysing young people's responses to transformations in their neighbourhood we argue that there is evidence for a more complex relationship between ‘gentrifiers' and residents than existing arguments of antagonism or tolerance would suggest. Using a participatory video methodology to document experiences of gentrification in the east London borough of Hackney, we found that young people involved in this study experienced their transforming city through processes of spatial dislocation and affective displacement. The former incorporated a sense of disorientation in the temporal disjunctions of the speed of change, while the latter invoked the embodiment of a sense of not belonging generated within classed and intercultural interactions. However, there are expressions of ambivalence rather than straightforward rejection. Benefits of gentrification were noted, including conditions of alterity and the possibility to transcend normative behaviours that they found uncomfortable. Young people demonstrated the capacity to reimagine their relationship with the complex spaces they call home. The findings suggest a need to reframe debates on gentrification to include a more nuanced understanding of its differential impact on young people.

Emoticon-Based Ambivalent Expression: A Hidden Indicator for Unusual Behaviors in Weibo.

Recent decades have witnessed online social media being a big-data window for testifying conventional social theories quantitatively and exploring much detailed human behavioral patterns. In this paper, by tracing the emoticon use in Weibo, a group of hidden “ambivalent users” are disclosed for frequently posting ambivalent tweets containing both positive and negative emotions. Further investigation reveals that this ambivalent expression could be a novel indicator of many unusual social behaviors. For instance, ambivalent users with the female as the majority like to make a sound in midnights and at weekends. They mention their close friends frequently in ambivalent tweets, which attract more replies and serve as a more private communication way. Ambivalent users also respond differently to public affairs from others and demonstrate more interests in entertainment and sports events. Moreover, the sentiment shift in ambivalent tweets is more evident than usual and exhibits a clear “negative to positive” pattern. The above observations, though being promiscuous seemingly, actually point to the self-regulation of negative mood in Weibo, which could find its basis from the traditional emotion management theories in sociology but makes an important extension to the online environment in this study. Finally, as an interesting corollary, ambivalent users are found connected with compulsive buyers and turn out to be perfect targets for online marketing.

Holiday Greeting Rituals as Expressions of Ambivalence and Indifference Toward Social Change

Social change often is positioned as the gradual acceptance of one set of dominant ideas over another. Ambivalence and indifference, however, also play an important role in the development of social change. Participants in this study discussed their use of common holiday greeting rituals and their reasons for using one greeting over another. Through constant comparative analysis, it was revealed that practicing American Christians undesirably challenge social change, desirably support it, see it as inevitable and therefore regard it with ambivalence, or see social change as irrelevant and meet it with indifference. Importantly, the way individuals experience social change has direct and observable implications on patterns of talk, thus affecting the nature of social change over time.

AMBIVALENCE OF INTEGRATED MYSELF – DESINTEGRATED MYSELF IN ADOLESCENCE

A systemic formative psychological phenomenon (integrated myself – desintegrated myself) is a semantic integrity and «a system of systems» in the structure of the genesis of personal ambivalence in adolescence. Integrated myself and desintegrated myself are linked to each component of ambivalence as a whole with one of several of its major units. The need in life as the root cause of personality development (S. D. Maksimenko) has a stable branch in the ambivalence of integrated myself and desintegrated myself in adolescence.Integrated myself has a moderate resistance to a different expression of oneself, characterized by balance, coherence and harmony experiences in adolescence. Desintegrated myself is characterized by an intense expression of resistance and struggle for dominance of different aspects of oneself and suppression of others which is accompanied by imbalances, inconsistencies and disharmony of experience at this age.It has been shown that the expressions of ambivalence of integrated myself – desintegrated myself in those adolescents are found in three levels: low harmonic, average inconsistent and high disharmonious. It has been found that there is a gradual increase in low harmonic level in persons from 17 to 20 years old. In addition, it has been found that there is a positive gradual reduction of average inconsistent and high disharmonious levels among people of 17 to 20 years old. The study has found that there is an increase of imbalance, incoherence, disharmony in ambivalence of integrated myself – desintegrated myself and wish to change during the transition to early adulthood among persons of 21 years old.

Splitting of Associative Threads: The Expression of Schizotypal Ambivalence in Daily Life

Ambivalence, which refers to the simultaneous experience of contradictory emotions and cognitions, has a longstanding and important role in the study of both normal and pathological functioning. Bleuler and Meehl viewed ambivalence as a central component of schizophrenic, and more broadly schizotypic, psychopathology. Ambivalence is associated with questionnaire and interview measures of schizotypic symptoms and impairment. However, its real-world expression has not been explored. The present study examined the expression of ambivalence, as assessed by the Schizotypal Ambivalence Scale, in daily life using experience sampling methodology. Specifically, it examined the association of ambivalence with affect, daily activities, and social and cognitive functioning in the moment. A sample of 430 male and female young adults completed an average of 42 daily life assessments during a one-week period. Ambivalence predicted diminished positive affect, increased negative affect, cognitive impairment, and social impairment. Furthermore, ambivalence moderated the effects of social closeness, emotional expression, and activity enjoyment on affect and functioning in daily life. Specifically, ambivalence was associated with affective dysregulation and greater reactivity to social stress. The present findings provided the first examination of the expression of ambivalence in daily life and support its inclusion as a component of schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology.

From ambivalence to agency: Becoming an author, an actor and a hero in a drama workshop

This paper examines ways in which the ambivalence can be recognized as a point of potential transformation and an opportunity to gain voice and agency. Our ethnographic study is focused on a drama workshop with foster care teens in Finland. We analyze the ways in which the youth's expressions of ambivalence are socially recognized as a catalyst for an agentive transcendence of their inner turmoil, conflicting desires, loyalties and visions of possible futures. While ambivalence is usually seen as a paralyzing state preventing one from making decisions and continuing with life, we develop a positive concept of ambivalence as a juncture at which disparate conflicting discourses from different “worlds” in one's life penetrate each other, creating openings for personal transformation. We see ambivalence as a dialogic tension in coordinating relationships in contradictory, dilemmatic social situations and, as a state facilitating the appearance of a dialogic relationship to one's own self.