Distant Others Research Articles

The new research agenda for a cultural psychology.

Abstract Qualitative methods are the investigative tools of choice for the field of cultural psychology, in which the study of meaning is central. The process of cultural psychological research calls for an approach that emphasizes the quality of the relationship between researchers and participants. We argue for the importance of this relationship in the development of the validity and usefulness of such work. Methods within this framework often include dialectic communication, respect, participatory partnership, inductive reasoning, and the taking of extra time as necessary. In this paper, research projects with urban Canadian street youth, Inuit prison inmates, and Inuit community members experiencing a youth suicide epidemic are provided as case studies that highlight the relational motif in qualitative research. The field of cultural psychology, alive in various forms for quite some time, has been burgeoning since about 1990 (Bruner, 1990; Cole, 1990; Stigler, Shweder, & Herdt, 1990). Cultural psychology is a multi- and interdisciplinary crossing but primarily involves the epistemological middle ground between psychology and anthropology. Some of its roots stem from the earlier work of Luria (1976), Mead (1934), and Vygotsky (1962). Arising also from the growing subdisciplines of psychological (e.g., Bock, 1994, 1999; Shore, 1996; Shweder & LeVine, 1984) and cognitive (e.g., D'Andrade, 1995; Hutchins, 1996; Strauss & Quinn, 1997) anthropology, cultural psychology has developed out of a dissatisfaction with psychology's psychic unity or universalist model of the mind (Shweder, 1990), cross-cultural psychology's treatment model of culture as an independent variable rather than as a process (Greenfield, 1997), and psychology's self-limiting ethnocentric logic (Seeley, in press). Cultural psychology includes or overlaps with a number of fields of investigation within psychology, including situated cognition (Kirshner & Whitson, 1997), social and shared cognition (Nye & Brower, 1996; Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991), and intentionality (Rosen, 1995). Its focus is on the understanding of not only how mind constitutes culture but more importantly of how culture constitutes mind. Cultural psychology examines the process of the social or cultural construction of the person including thoughts, emotions, motivation, development, identity, and other psychological constructs. Culture in cultural psychology encompasses identities, meanings, experiences, and practices, and is usually conceptualized, in the Kroeber-- Kluckhohn sense, as collective symbolic discourse (Kuper, 1999, p. 16). In keeping with the more recent trend in anthropology, culture goes beyond reference to traditional exoticism and moves, both in focus and definition, to the inclusion of less distant others within the same landscape, and may encompass beliefs, traditions, and ideologies with respect to such categories as age cohort, gender, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, and even workplace (Aug&, 1994; Kuper, 1999). At the centre of cultural psychology is the study of meaning. It leans on the hermeneutic or interpretive side of psychology. Thus, of utmost importance is the understanding of meaning from the participant's (native's) point of view. Bruner (1990) writes that cultural psychology also seeks out the rules that human beings bring to bear in creating meanings in cultural contexts. These contexts are always contexts of practice. It is always necessary to ask what people are doing or trying to do in that context (p. 118). Qualitative research methods, through a process that can be both inductive and deductive, allow for the understanding of such rules people have for making sense of their worlds specific to various domains of enquiry. We agree with Ratner (1997) that [t]he task of inferring mental activity from extensive expressions is the central and distinguishing concern of qualitative methodology (p. …

Rights, Responsibility, and Relationship: Motivations for Women's Social Activism

A narrative analysis of interviews with 50 women who were working for social change as professionals or volunteers revealed three motivations for activism: (a) to ensure rights, (b) to fulfill responsibilities, and (c) to restore relationships and build community. The three motivations reflect amodified ethic of care, which includes concern for distant and unfamiliar others. The women's spirituality supports the modified care ethic by emphasizing the interdependence of all life.

The Third-Person Effect in Perceptions of the Influence of Television Violence

This study examines the third-person effect (the belief that others are more affected by media messages than oneself) for two different effects of televised violence, mean world perceptions and aggression, using attribution theory as an explanatory framework. In telephone interviews with a random sample of 253 community residents, third-person effects, as predicted, were observed for both aggression and mean world perceptions, but were larger for the more socially undesirable influence on aggression and for more distant others (in the U.S. rather than the local community). In addition, those who compared themselves favorably with others perceived a larger third-person effect for aggression. The study also explores the role of other factors in the third-person effect, including demographics and liking for and exposure to televised violence.

The third-person effect in perceptions of the influence of television violence

This study examines the third-person effect (the belief that others are more affected by media messages than oneself) for two different effects of televised violence, mean world perceptions and aggression, using attribution theory as an explanatory framework. In telephone interviews with a random sample of 253 community residents, third-person effects, as predicted, were observed for both aggression and mean world perceptions, but were larger for the more socially undesirable influence on aggression and for more distant others (in the U.S. rather than the local community). In addition, those who compared themselves favorably with others perceived a larger third-person effect for aggression. The study also explores the role of other factors in the third-person effect, including demographics and liking for and exposure to televised violence.

A Manifesto for Cyborg Pedagogy?

This paper seeks to give an impression of what can happen if teachers encourage their students to take personally the issues they study, and to think and to write about how their identities and everyday lives are inseparable from the kinds of issues studied in the geography classroom. It discusses three principles – situated knowledge, cyborg ontologies and border pedagogy – which have guided the organisation of an undergraduate course on the geographies of material culture. This attempts to get students to think through their connections with the lives of distant others through simple acts of consumption, and the responsibilities which they might therefore have. This paper illustrates the kinds of student writing that can come out of such a course and the ways in which this issue of responsibility should be, and is, talked about.

The geographic problematic: Moral issues

The geographic problematic stems from the fact that we cannot accept reality as it is and so we create places to transform reality into what we think it ought to be, and then transform this new reality, and so on. This paper assumes an understanding of the power of place as an instrument in transforming the world, and explores how the ought in the problematic is formed, how it is a moral issue that leads to a geographic theory of morality. This theory argues that it is good to create places that increase our capacities to see reality more clearly, and that also increase the variety and complexity of that reality. Using this as a precept or guide to our place-making will encourage care for distant others and lead to a political-economy of altruism.

Authoritative Texts, Collaborative Ethnography, and Native American Studies

In the spirit of self-determination, Indian people should be the ones to write about Indian education. Karen Gayton Swisher, "Why Indian People Should be the Ones to Write About Indian Education" In my view, there is room for both Indian and non-Indian scholars within American Indian studies. Duane Champagne, "American Indian Studies Is for Everyone" Writing in the same volume, Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about American Indians, though from different angles, Swisher and Champagne both engage an important debate in American Indian studies; one that many Native American studies scholars feel very strongly about regardless of where they stand on the issue. 1 On the one hand, Swisher's call for Indians to write about Indian education echoes a more general concern voiced by Native American studies scholars about the limitations of non-Indian authored Native American studies literature. 2 This concern actually points to a larger critique of the conventional writing tradition that has emerged out of a Euro-American culture and worldview. Having its roots in the Western world, this writing tradition places the single author in a dominant relationship with the text's "subjects." This convention became ensconced within the milieu of a colonial experience whereby colonizers wrote about the colonized as distant, exotic, and silent Others. 3 Swisher's sentiments bear out the fact that this tradition continues to have hegemonic reverberations in contemporary writings about indigenous peoples. Consciously or unconsciously embracing this long-standing approach to writing about Others, authors who write about Native Americans who have been and [End Page 601] continue to be mostly non-Indians - routinely write about Indian Others without serious regard to their experiences, their perspectives, and (especially) their voices. Even when presuming to listen to and write Indian voices, the dominant writing tradition that the vast majority of authors embrace precludes any shift of authority away from the author's voice. Hence the lack of Indian voices in Native American studies literature is very real: one would be hard-pressed to argue with Swisher when she writes that "much research still is presented from an outsider's perspective." 4 Understood in this light, Swisher's call for more Indians to write about Indians - in this case Indian education - is reasonable and defensible. Indeed, Indian authors who challenge conventional ways of writing about Native people provide a voice that is too often missing in the Native American studies literature, regardless of subject. On the other hand, Champagne touches on another side of the issue, one which is equally reasonable and defensible. He directly responds to concerns voiced by Indian scholars, like Swisher, that recognize the lack of and need for Indian voices in the Native American studies literature. Champagne acknowledges that these scholars have indeed done much to change the voices heard in Native American studies. Importantly, they have forcefully shifted the perspective and direction of the discipline. But "to say that only Indians can study Indians," he writes, "goes too far toward excluding American Indian culture and history from the rest of human history and culture." 5 His argument, of course, engages a much broader philosophical question concerning the nature of academic scholarship. From this angle it is often suggested that an outsider's perspective, although different from the insider's, is just as valid to the production of knowledge about human society, history, and culture. Any and all perspectives, as the argument goes, help to strengthen - not weaken - the ultimate goal of understanding ourselves and others. "One does not have to be a member of a culture to understand what culture means or to interpret a culture in a meaningful way," writes Champagne. 6 As a non-Indian Native American studies scholar, I identify emotionally with Champagne's view but empathize intellectually with Swisher's. One would ideally encourage anyone to study and write in Native American studies; but realistically, a very clear division still remains between the texts written about Native America...

TREATMENTS AND THEIR OUTCOMES FOR RECURRENCE OF THORACIC ESOPHAGEAL CARCINOMA AFTER CURATIVE RESECTION

In this study, clinical outcomes of treatments for recurrence of throacic esophageal carcinoma after curative resection were analyzed. Fifty six out of 120 patients, who received curative resection for squamous cell carcinoma of thoracic esophagus between March 1983 and December 1995, experienced a recurrence. These 56 cases were subjected to the study. The sites of recurrence were cervical lymph noden (8 cases), upper mediastinal region (25 cases), a distant organ (16 cases) and others. One-and 2-year recurrence rates were 54% and 86% respectively. The median disease-free survilal period was 11 monhs and median survival period after recurrence was 6 months. The incidence of cervical lymph node recurrence of patients with postoperative irradiation of the T-fields was significantly lower than those without radiation therapy (p<0.05). Patients with cervical lymph node dissection for cervical recurrence and patients with irradiation for upper mediastinal recurrence had relatively good prognosis. Although patients with distant organ metastasis had poor prognosis, active therapies such as transcatheter arterial chemotherapy for liver metastasis or resection of brain metastasis brought some better prognosis. To improve the prognosis of patients with recurred esophageal cancer after curative surgery, not only early diagnosis of recurrence but also vigorous treatment appropriate for the recurred site it would be mandatory.

Caring at a distance

Abstract The paper draws upon new conceptions of place, space, interaction and community in Geography and Media Studies to explore the possibilities of extending existing conceptions of care and caring from the context with which they are traditionally associated—face‐to‐face encounters within a shared physical locale. It proposes three structures of ‘caring at a distance’, all of which have a core element of mediated or distanciated interaction, and concludes that mass media and electronic networks play a significant role in extending the scope of beneficence beyond our ‘nearest and dearest’ to embrace distant others.

Caring at a Distance

The paper draws upon new conceptions of place, space, interaction and community in Geography and Media Studies to explore the possibilities of extending existing conceptions of care and caring from the context with which they are traditionally associated—face-to-face encounters within a shared physical locale. It proposes three structures of ‘caring at a distance’, all of which have a core element of mediated or distanciated interaction, and concludes that mass media and electronic networks play a significant role in extending the scope of beneficence beyond our ‘nearest and dearest’ to embrace distant others.

The interactional context of problem-, emotion-, and relationship-focused coping: the role of the big five personality factors.

This study examined the role that personality and situational factors play in three forms of coping responses: problem-, emotion- and relationship-focused. Coping responses were strongly associated with whether the situation involved a primarily agentic (work) or communal (interpersonal) stressor. Among communal stressors, the involvement of close versus distant others was also associated with coping responses. Situational factors were linked most strongly with the use of problem-focused (planful problem solving) and relationship-focused (empathic responding) modes of coping. Dimensions of personality derived from the five-factor model (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) had important associations with coping responses. Coping responses were best predicted by models that included both the additive and multiplicative effects of person and situation factors. Taken together, the findings suggest that a model of coping that considers both agentic and communal dimensions of stressful situations, includes interpersonal dimensions of coping, and considers personality and situation factors in tandem is needed to increase the predictive utility of current models.

Images of the third world: teaching a geography of the third world

Abstract This paper focuses on how to teach undergraduate students to analyse critically various received images of the Third World. This is achieved through the use of a detailed practical exercise which is based on poster, newspaper and map representation of the Third World. The concepts of identity, positionality and representation are reviewed and there is a discussion of how an awareness of these concepts should help students understand the influencing power of stereotypical images of distant others.

The perceived impact of the mass media: Reconsidering the third person effect

AbstractCommunication scholars describe a pervasive ‘third person effect’ wherein people see mass media as more likely to affect other people than themselves. Two experiments are reported demonstrating that this effect is not a universal response to the issue of social influence, but occurs in specific social comparative contexts. In Experiment I respondents judged the impact on self and other of three types of media content‐negative content, positive content, and public service campaigns. Comparison others varied on two dimensions, vagueness and closeness. A third person effect was found for both negative and positive content, but was more pronounced for negative content. The effect was also more pronounced in comparisons with vague and distant others. In contrast, respondents saw themselves as relatively vulnerable to influence from public service campaigns. Moreover, the direction of perceived self‐other differences varied with respondents' perceptions of the desirability of the intended influence. In Experiment 2 respondents judged the impact on self and other of media violence and drink‐driving campaigns. Results confirmed a perception of relative invulnerability to negative content and indicated that comparisons with vague others, and particularly with vague‐distant others like ‘the average person’, facilitate such perceptions. Perceived self‐other differences on the issue of drink‐driving were less evident and varied with the perceived desirability of the intended influence. Results are discussed in terms of the ego‐defensive and self‐enhancing functions of social comparisons.

Relational Contexts and Information Management among Gay Men

Deciding whether to tell others about their sexual orientation is an important feature of gays' social interactions. Thirty-eight gay men were interviewed to see how they manage this personal information across four types of relationships: parental relationships, sibling relationships, friendships, and relationships with acquaintances and more distant others. Findings are discussed in light of current models of gay identity development. The implications of the study for our understanding of the social relationships of gays and nongays and for clinical practice with gay men are addressed.

Strategies for Resolving Identity Problems: “Self-We” and “We-They” Differentiation

The study uses both experimental and questionnaire methods to test the relationship between problems of identity arising from self-incongruity and seeking one's own distinctiveness. It is hypothesized that the type of identity problem, either internal (stable and rooted in the person) or external (self-image threatened by new information), is a significant modifying variable. Other modifying variables are the closeness of the object of comparison and the schematicity of dimensions on which comparisons are made. It was found that people with internal identity problems have a greater tendency to differentiate between self and close rather than distant others; people without these problems reveal the opposite tendency. External identity problems are associated with greater tendency to differentiate between the self and distant rather than close others. Regardless of the degree and type of identity problem, the tendency to differentiate between self and others was stronger on schematic than aschematic dimensi...

Justice and Charity

The distinction between justice and charity is thought to be fundamental in ethical theory. Yet remarkably little has been done to develop the distinction systematically or to articulate the role it is to play in ethical theory. Four theses about the difference between justice and charity are widely held and rarely argued for: (1) Duties ofjustice (with the exception of those which correspond to special rights generated by promising or special relationships or reciprocal group undertakings that generate obligations of fair play) are exclusively negative duties (duties to refrain from certain actions); duties of charity are generally positive duties (duties to render aid). (2) Duties of justice may be enforced; duties of charity may not. (3) Duties of justice are perfect duties; duties of charity are imperfect. (Perfect duties are determinate both with regard to the content of what is required and with regard to the identity of the individual who is the object of the duty; duties of charity are indeterminate in both senses: the kind and amount of aid, as well as the choice of a recipient are left to the discretion of the benefactor.) (4) Justice is a matter of rights; charity is not (duties of justice have correlative rights; duties of charity do not), and what is one's right is owed to one, the lack of which gives one justified grounds for complaint that one has been wronged. It is far from clear how claims 1-4 are supposed to be related to one another. Although all four purport to characterize differences between justice and charity, we shall see that not all are equally plausible candidates for answering the question, What makes something a duty of charity rather than a duty of justice, and vice versa? Moreover, it will become clear that some of these claims are thought to be derivable from the others, although the connecting assumptions are often either not made explicit or not argued for. By analyzing theses 1-4 and by articulating and assessing the grounds for asserting them, I shall explore the distinction between justice and