Contentious Interactions Research Articles

Turning Sexual Incompatibility into a Passionate Relationship

Helping couples effectively change their sexual relationship involves more than communication and negotiation. Partners’differences in styles of sexual expression can enhance intimacy and facilitate personal growth, if the therapist understands how partners drive each other to grow through difficult contentious interactions. Many sexual arguments, confrontations, and refusal to compromise result from healthy processes of differentiation rather than incompatibility or skill deficits. This workshop outlines how the same natural sexual growth processes that create conflicts, boredom, and low desire can help couples maintain intimacy and passion.

An Electronic Diary Study of Contextual Triggers and ADHD: Get Ready, Get Set, Get Mad

This study was designed to examine context effects or provocation ecologies in the daily lives of children with ADHD. Across 7 days, mothers and children (27 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] taking stimulant medication; 25 children without ADHD; ages 7-12 years) provided electronic diary reports every 30 +/- 5 minutes during non-school hours. Child and maternal perceptions of behaviors, moods, and interaction quality during preparatory and transitional ("getting ready") activities were compared with those during other activities. Maternal reports revealed that child symptomatic behaviors and negative moods, maternal negative moods, and parent-child disagreement were elevated in the ADHD but not in the comparison group while getting ready versus other activities. Children's self-ratings also revealed situational effects, indicating that school-age children with ADHD can give meaningful self-reports using carefully structured electronic diaries. Even when children with ADHD are receiving stimulant pharmacotherapy, the preparatory tasks of daily living are especially challenging and linked disproportionately to child behavior problems, parent negative affect, and contentious interactions. Treatment targeted on these transitional hurdles may improve child behavior patterns and enhance parent-child relationships and family harmony.

Architectures of Russian Identity: 1500 to the Present by James s> Cracraft Daniel Rowland (review)

REVIEWS I35 Cracraft,James, and Rowland, Daniel (eds). Architectures of RussianIdentity. I500 to thePresent. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, and London, 2003. viii + 253 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Index. C3495; CI5.95. THEeditorsdescribethis collection of essaysas an 'interdisciplinaryconversation ' between fourteen specialists working in different fields and periods. 'Architectures',they argue, can reflectthe power of churchand state,embody culturalpreferencesthatspringfromideological choices (Westernformsin the eighteenth century, avant-garde in the 1920S), provide a focus for debates about political and ideological goals, underpin group identities and national pride, and much more besides. There is little 'traditional' architectural history here. James Cracraft perhapscomes closestto it in his usefulreconsiderationof the periodizationof Russian architecturalhistory around the Petrine 'divide'. The aptness of the different 'Baroque' tags attached to the period invites furtherdebate. In the Muscovite section Michael S. Flier'ssubtlestudyof Ivan IV and the throne of Monomach (actuallyan elaborate royal pew) analysesthe scenes on the side panels, the architecturalsourcesand the throne'srelationshipto the restof the building. Daniel Rowland reveals the remarkable extent to which Boris Godunov deployed buildingsand architecturalspace to establishhis own and his clan'slegitimacy,with particularreferenceto his identificationof Moscow with various 'Jerusalems'.Symbolic landscapes full of allegories and associations also feature in Dmitri Shvidkovskii's entertaining exploration of Catherine the Great's 'field of dreams' in the parks and ensembles around Tsarskoe Selo. Russian noble estate architectureemulated such visions on a smaller scale. In her article on the subject PriscillaRoosevelt confirms that court fashion dominated noble tastes throughout the imperial period, from Baroque through Palladianism and their various revivals, to the 'rustic' cottages favoured by nineteenth-century rulers. Christopher Ely explores visions of 'touristicspace' in the I820s-50s, showing how Russia's 'meagre' (in comparison with idealized European models) landscape was transformed into suitable 'sceneryof the fatherland'.Travelwriterssign-posteda new sort of pilgrimage for an educated public rediscoveringthe sights of Holy Russia and Orthodox spiritualitywith the insights of modern man. West European observerscontinuedto findsuchlandscapedistinctlyalien.LaurenM. O'Connell gives a useful account of the pioneeringjoint ventures into Russian art history of Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc and Viktor Butkovskii. The latter'sHistoire del'ornament russe (Paris, i 870) brought 'strange'Russian art to a European public, emphasizing the influence of 'Asiatic' elements, while Viollet-le-Duc's book L'art russe (i 877. Russiantranslationi 879) narrowedthe focus of 'Slavic-Asiatic'theory to Indian or 'Hindu' origins.Associationswith 'barbarism'provedunpopularwith many Russianreaders.Demonstratingthe 'vitalityof the historicalspiritof Muscovite Rus" in modern architecturewas one of the motivatingfactorsbehind the imperialchoice of the 'Russianstyle' in late tsaristchurch architecture,which Richard Wortman illuminates in a stimulating overview. 'Revival' churches also featured in the imperial reconstruction of Tashkent, which forms the subject of Robert D. Crews's article. The creation of a 'European quarter' in the late i 86os, erecting i36 SEER, 83, I, 2005 monuments to the common Russian soldier, redesigning parts of the old city, were meant to demonstrate 'the vitality and civilizing capacity of the Russian tribe' (p. 123). 'Progress' blatantly confronting 'backwardness' helped to fuel revolutionary politics. The old and the new were juxtaposed in different ways in Soviet cities. Greg Castillo examines and castigates the contribution of Constructivism to the design of the Socialist city in reality and as utopia, including the demolition of 'superfluous' ancient buildings. Andrew Day provides a stimulating revisionist overview of 'the rise and fall' of Stalinist architecture and its 'complex, dynamic and often contentious interactions' (p. 173), focusing on the plan for the reconstruction of post-war Stalingrad. Mark Bassin's excellent contribution stresses the importance of nature in the socialist realist vision, illustrating how the natural world was reconciled with industrial construction in 'dynamic' landscapes. At its crudest, this could mean including a tractor in a winter forest scene, but in wartime the unadulterated landscape of the motherland under threat of despoilment byfashisty was allowed to appeal directly to the emotions. In the post-Soviet section Kathleen F. Frost discusses the heated debates over suitable monuments to Stalin's victims and Blair A. Ruble offers a fascinating glimpse of the new order in Iaroslavl', as modernity clashes with heritage, church with city authorities, private capital with public money in reclaiming and reshaping the town. This is a thought-provoking and attractively produced volume of...

Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1689-2000 by Brian D. s> Taylor (review)

i36 SEER, 83, I, 2005 monuments to the common Russian soldier, redesigning parts of the old city, were meant to demonstrate 'the vitality and civilizing capacity of the Russian tribe' (p. 123). 'Progress' blatantly confronting 'backwardness' helped to fuel revolutionary politics. The old and the new were juxtaposed in different ways in Soviet cities. Greg Castillo examines and castigates the contribution of Constructivism to the design of the Socialist city in reality and as utopia, including the demolition of 'superfluous' ancient buildings. Andrew Day provides a stimulating revisionist overview of 'the rise and fall' of Stalinist architecture and its 'complex, dynamic and often contentious interactions' (p. 173), focusing on the plan for the reconstruction of post-war Stalingrad. Mark Bassin's excellent contribution stresses the importance of nature in the socialist realist vision, illustrating how the natural world was reconciled with industrial construction in 'dynamic' landscapes. At its crudest, this could mean including a tractor in a winter forest scene, but in wartime the unadulterated landscape of the motherland under threat of despoilment byfashisty was allowed to appeal directly to the emotions. In the post-Soviet section Kathleen F. Frost discusses the heated debates over suitable monuments to Stalin's victims and Blair A. Ruble offers a fascinating glimpse of the new order in Iaroslavl', as modernity clashes with heritage, church with city authorities, private capital with public money in reclaiming and reshaping the town. This is a thought-provoking and attractively produced volume of essays, some based on archival sources, which use nuanced approaches to show how architectures and space in general both helped to shape and were shaped by identities national, local, social, ideological. It demonstrates just how often buildings, spaces and images speak more eloquently than written texts and illustrates the many rewards that historians can reap from an intelligent 'reading' of the built environment. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies LINDSEY HUGHES University College London Taylor,BrianD. Politics andtheRussian Army.Civil-Militagy Relations, I689-2000. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2003. xvi + 355 pp. Figures.Tables.Notes. Index. [i8.95: $26.oo (paperback). WELL within living memory, Latin-Americangovernmentswere characteristically a function of the military.But no longer, and it would be interestingto know why. In this and other cases a general theory of civil-military relationships might help, and studies of particular states can assist the development of such a theory. Like Latin America, Russia at one time had rulerswho were imposed by the army and who alwaysknew that they could be removed by the army. The eighteenth century,with itspalace revolutions, was the peak period for military 'sovereign power' intervention but, quite abruptly,the trend changed and by the twentieth century the Russian army officer was determinedly apolitical. At various junctures, when there was opportunityand cause to mount a coup, the army was markedlyreluctantto do so. Analysesof thesejunctures is the purposeof the book underreview. REVIEWS 137 The authorplaces the Decembrist Revolt as the turningpoint. This showed that militaryinterventioncould fail, painfully.It was followed by undercover surveillanceof officersand a cultof strictdisciplineand blindobedience which trainedthem to keep their heads down and their noses in. The last three tsars came to the throne smoothly,which was quite a new phenomenon for Russia. Dmitri Miliutin's reforms at the War Ministry meanwhile gave the more intelligent segment of the officer corps reason to think that defence of the realmcould makea fulfillingcareer,and drewits minds awayfrompolitics. When in 1905-o6 the army saved the regime it did so only because it was conditioned to obey the orders of its commander-in-chief, the Emperor; it deplored and resented its use in civil strife. In I917, again, the army was dragged into politics against its instincts. It could hardly continue its urgent task of defending the frontiers while sovereign power was in dispute, so it participated in the abdication of the Emperor. Under the Provisional Government, it was the need to pursue the war effectively that persuaded some officers to oppose the Bolsheviks. But this was far from a clear-cut intervention.The KornilovAffairwas hardlyan attemptedmilitarycoup, but a mess for which the prime ministerwas largely responsible,and most of the generalswere unenthusiastic. Jumping ahead, the military aspect of the I99...

"ARGUMENT IS WAR"-Or is it a Game of Chess? Multiple Meanings in the Analysis of Implicit Metaphors

Both Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Vervaeke and Kennedy (1996), in their critique of Lakoff and Johnson, drew narrowly from a broad range of reasonable interpretations of the metaphors they analyzed. Expanding the interpretations vitiates many of Vervaeke and Kennedy's criticisms, but it supports their call for an open interpretation of groups of metaphors and points toward a more complex elaboration of the theories put forth by Lakoff and Johnson. The results of applying this approach to "ARGUMENT IS WAR" suggest that war is not necessarily the primary conceptual metaphor for contentious argument, as Lakoff and Johnson claimed. Rather, there is a complex field of contentious interactions, ranging from simple discussions through contests to all-out war: Any and all of these can be and are used as metaphors for the others. When a word or phrase like "defend," "position," "maneuver," or "strategy" is used, there is no a priori way to determine whether the intended meaning is an athletic contest or a game of chess. Similar analyses are applied to other examples from the metaphor literature, and a modification of the basic idea of conceptual mapping is proposed, in which metaphors map cognitive responses onto prototypical situations rather than mapping 1 specific experience or concept onto another.

Nonviolence as Contentious Interaction

change. But because our notion of contention is interactive, we tend to stress more relational than cognitive or environmental mechanisms (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly forthcoming, chap. 5; Tilly 1997). Second, while most analysts of contentious politics focus on a particular kind of contention (e.g., social movements, revolutions, nationalism, nonviolence, terrorism), we search for analogies among them. In other words, we seek to detail the workings of similar mechanisms and processes in widely varying forms of contention-from nonviolence to confrontational conflict

Nonviolence as Contentious Interaction

Nonviolence as Contentious Interaction

Working alone and working together: Individual differences in the effects of collaboration on learning handicapped students' writing

Differences between stories written by learning handicapped students working alone and those produced when they worked in dyads were related to individual differences in writing skills and to the collaborative interactions that occurred in the dyads. The relationship between individual and dyad performance was characterized in terms of several outcome models (synergistic, most-competent member, least-competent member, and mean). Of the 10 dyads examined, the synergistic model was appropriate for 2; the other 8 dyads reflected the least-competent member model or a mix of the least-competent and mean models. Synergistic outcomes were associated with lack of disagreeing and contentious interactions and relatively low rates of interaction among the members. Least-competent member outcomes were associated with high rates of interaction and/or high rates of disagreeing or contentious behavior. The discussion focuses on potential tradeoffs between interactions about writing and actual text generation, and the impact of the individual's performance level on this tradeoff.