Positive Assertion Research Articles

'Dogmatical' Dryden: Translating the Georgics in the Age of Politeness

'Dogmatical' is not an adjective we would nowadays think of applying to John Dryden. Since Philip Harth began his Contexts of Dryden 's Thought (1968) by saying that 'Most discussions of Dryden's characteristic thought are governed by a set of assumptions about his scepticism . . . which have been accepted ... for the past thirty years',2 thirty more years have passed and little has changed. Defining the 'dogmatical way' of Lucretius in the Preface to Sylvae (1685) as 'a certain kind of noble pride, and positive assertion of his opinions', Dryden famously contrasted his own 'natural diffidence and scepticism';3 and today's leading commentators on his work continue to take him at his word. For David Hopkins he is an ambivalent or unsystematic writer, an explorer of contradictory voices.4 For Cedric D. Reverand II and Paul Hammond he is a 'subversive' poet whose mature works interrogate our desire 'to make connections, discover inherent systems of value, and build theories', the author of 'fictions which exhibit both their materials and their gaps' in order to provoke their readers 'to reflect on how their own conceptual and political worlds are constructed'.5 There are, without doubt, good grounds for believing that Dryden was 'inclin'd to Scepticism' (Preface to Religio Laid; Poems, II, 86). The Restoration court, the court he served and has come to symbolize, was awash with sceptical ideas, imbibed during its years of exile in Paris, where the writings of the ancient sceptics were much in vogue. In the early stages of his career, he was an enthusiastic propagandist for the newly-founded Royal Society, whose scrupulous experimental procedures would, he announced, put an end to the epistemological 'tyranny' 'wherein our ancestors betrayed / Their free-born reason' to the archdogmatist Aristotle, 'And made his torch their universal light' ('To my Honoured Friend Dr. Charleton', 1-4). Later, in his satirical masterpieces, he attacked Shaftesbury as a dogmatical democrat, who 'Maintains the multitude can never err, / And sets the people in the papal chair' (The Medal, 86-7). Even his own eventual submission to papal discipline, his

The Case of California (review)

Reviews395 female narrator. The erotic, autobiographical novels of the 1980s and 1990s, such as TL· Lover, adapt these complex cinematic techniques to literature. By focusing the reader's gaze through the eyes of a woman character and by recounting the story in a female voice that alternates between first and third persons, Duras asserts her right as both woman and writer to control our understanding of desire, absence, split subjectivity and the coincidence of public and private catastrophe, the preoccupations of her entire career. Schuster's study is useful in explaining problems in Duras's work, such as her appearances in her own films, which Schuster interprets as a positive assertion ofauthorial control, or the overtly personal character of the later novels, which Schuster sees as a means of experimentation with "the self-conscious play between fiction and confession, fantasy and memory" (p. 117). MargueriteDuras RevuitedWAl help Durasophobes and Durasophiles, both ofwhom, according to Schuster, often hold their opinions for the wrong reasons, gain a new understanding of Duras's importance in French fiction and in feminist studies. Whitman CollegeMary Anne O'Neil The Case of California, by Laurence A. Rickels; 373 pp. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, $45.00 cloth, $13.95 paper. According to Derrida, America is deconstruction. Laurence Rickels helps clarify Derrida's sound bite by relocating California within the analyses of group psychology and mass culture offered by psychoanalysis and the Frankfurt School. In a series of tightly written "cultural clips," Rickels deconstructs "Kalifornien," and by extension "Amerika," as the outer limit of Central European thought. Some highlights from Rickels's analysis of California: It was not only the practice of embalming the dead that had its modern rebirth in California. Out west, popular music, like the horror film, turns on ritual sacrifice: the replacement oflove and war by friendship and suicide. The increasingly drastic assertion of sexuality in popular culture is one of many desperate attempts to deny death: sex is no longer the subtext, it is the pretext. Since it is not very friendly to dig up the death cult underlying culture, California shifts its attention to undying adolescence. Group-think meets its match and maker in the teenager, who "likes to be different like everyone he likes to be like" (p. 165). The group's denial of death only means that death will come back later with renewed energy. Jonestown is the logical living end for the teenage gang. At the very least, these arguments are plausible, usually they are convincing, 396Philosophy and Literature and at times compelling. Occasionally, though, one wonders about Rickels's friends—what kind of a creepy gang is he hanging out with? Adorno's association ofpopular music with Africa and Africa with human sacrifice might seem to fit more easily into a history of European racism than any other analysis. Nor does the Frankfurt School's analysis of the masses as feminine stand up to a feminist critique. Freud's concern about the "rule of women in America" and his conclusion that Woodrow Wilson's breakdown was caused by an American society allegedly consisting primarily of women and effeminate men isn't reassuring either. Along the same lines, psychoanalytic commentary from the 1950s about "clinical" imposters and schizophrenia seems to emerge from a homophobic, as well as sexist, discourse about passive, feminine men, who are the children of absent fathers, and "possessive mothers." But Rickels's point is that one can't distinguish between that racist, sexist, and homophobic tradition and American pop culture. He occasionally ironizes these voices from the past as he channels them—for instance, when he suggests that "mature heterosexuality is designed to rotate perpetually on low like some libido lawn sprinkler" (p. 282). And just when you think he's calling for the return of the Führer, or at least the idealized nuclear family with a strong father, he slips—accidentally on purpose—in a parenthetical remark, and lets you in on a secret: Daddy isn't going to take the T-bird away—the adolescent state he critiques so powerfully "is, after all, here to stay" (p. 286). In fact, his constant use of Californian speech patterns—"totally radical," "tubular...

Christianity and Individualism: (Re-)Creation and Reality in Frederick Douglass's Representation of Self

question of religious belief prompted by Douglass's impassioned utterance regarding the relation between the existence of God and his own status as a slave was not raised by him alone. Reverend Charles Colcock Jones, a white, Southern slave missionary, wrote in 1842, who carries the Gospel to them ...discovers deism, skepticism, universalism ... such strong opinions about the truth of God, objections which he may perhaps have considered peculiar to the cultivated minds of critics and philosophers (qtd. in Raboteau 176). Raboteau also reports the response of a recently freed black woman who was questioned about her religious belief. has been a terrible mystery to know why the good Lord should so long afflict my people and keep them in bondage to be abused and trampled down any rights of their own, with no ray of light in the future. Though she had sustained her own faith, others had not. Some of my folks said there wasn't any God, for if there was he wouldn't white folks do as they have done for so many (314). most interesting aspect of this response, and of Douglass's questioning of God's existence, is the ambiguity occasioned by the context. Each expresses belief, yet raises the issue of disbelief in the face of felt knowledge and experience. Douglass's response to the question raised by theodicy, the recognition of the problem raised by the co-existence of a just God and evil, had a profound effect on Douglass's thinking, for the question was basic to his sense of self and thus to the extraordinary sense of individualism that he clearly possessed. That Douglass should, in the epigraph above, in the same breath implore God to him and then question his very existence points to an implicit line of reasoning: If there were a God, then I would not be a slave, since I am a slave, the possibility exists (hence the question, not a positive assertion) that there is no God. Also implicit in his reasoning is the assumption that, if there were a God, he would save me, deliver me, let me be free. It is of significance that this expression of ambivalence occurs in the Narrative prior to Douglass's fight with Covey, the nigger breaker, for it is my contention that such ambivalence was resolved with the outcome of that confrontation, a moment that also witnessed the birth, in the consciousness of the former (as he sees himself at the time) slave, of an extraordinarily intense and ardent individualism. Douglass's sense of individualism is inextricably bound to his psychological sense of self. When sent to Covey's farm, Douglass was sixteen years old and verging on adulthood. He had experienced life as a slave in Baltimore, and as we know, city slave life was on the whole comparatively less restrictive.(1) His recalcitrance and his wilfulness were attributed by his then present owner, Thomas Auld, to his sojourn in the city.(2) His defiance and intractability were immediately occasioned by the necessity to fulfill his needs (he allows Auld's horse to run away to Auld's father-in-law's because the underfed Douglass knows he will get food there), but he as well challenges patriarchal authority. severe whippings he receives as a result of his fractious behavior are all to no purpose. Douglass, out of psychological necessity, perhaps, or out of instinct, struck at the very core of slavery when he challenged the authority of white males, especially when he rendered Auld's punishment futile by refusing to modify his behavior. Kenneth Stampp says about punishment that, without the power to punish, which the state through the black codes conferred upon the master, bondage could not have existed. By comparison, other techniques of control were of secondary importance (171). Eugene Genovese puts the issue in another way in quoting the opinion (State v. Mann, 1829) of North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Thomas Ruffin: The end of slavery |is the profit of the master; the task of the slave is to toil that another may reap the fruits. …

The structure of assertiveness: a confirmatory approach

By using confirmatory factor analysis, distress and performance factors of assertion identified previously in a sample of predominantly agoraphobic club members ( N = 703) employing the Scale for Interpersonal Behavior (SIB)—the factors being (I) Display of negative feelings; (II) Expression of and dealing with personal limitations; (III) Initiating assertiveness; and (IV) Praising others and the ability to deal with compliments/praise of others (positive assertion)—were shown to be reproducible (constant) in a combined sample of shy, socially phobic and unassertive Ss treated on an outpatient basis ( N = 269). The importance of studies of this kind is briefly pinpointed.

"The Base Shall Top Th'Legitimate": The Bedlam Beggar and the Role of Edgar in "King Lear"

DGAR'S PASSAGE THROUGH KING LEAR is relatively clear its outlinesfrom naive to outcast beggar to restored son, heir, and finally, perhaps, king. It is the curve of a romance plot, though it never feels like one. The nature of Edgar's inner changes, on the other hand, is an entirely different question; whether he possesses what may be called a consistent inner self has been widely debated. Much of the difficulty discussing stems from the series of roles he plays the middle of the play which seem embodiments (if that is possible) of negation and self-alienation, most cryptically expressed a string of orphic negatives, from Edgar I nothing (II.iii.21) through in nothing am I chang'd / But my garments (IV.vi.9-10) to Know, my name is lost (V.iii. 121).1 The play's eerie calculus transforms these negatives into the positive assertion of identity that makes to Edmund at the end of the play: My name is Edgar, and thy father's son (V.iii.169)-and yet even this positive assertion is characteristically ambiguous. We will never be able to explain everything about Edgar-the mystery of things is too great his case-but his role the play becomes clearer when we look more closely at his disguise as Poor Tom, the Bedlam beggar, and when we realize that the play's persistent interrogation of the human body's place the natural and social orders is culminated Poor Tom's suffering body. We will also see how a link between Poor Tom and Edmund helps clarify Edgar's situation the play.

Relationship Between the Children's Assertiveness Inventory (CAI) and the Revised Behaviorial Assertiveness Test for Children (BAT-CR)

In this study, the relationship between a self-report measure of assertive behavior in children, the Children's Assertiveness Inventory, and a role-play measure of assertive behavior, the Revised Behavioral Assertiveness Test for Children, was examined in 69 elementary school children. Measures of assertive responding to positive (initiating interactions/giving and receiving compliments) and negative (standing up for one's own rights/refusing unreasonable requests) situations were obtained for both self-report and role-play measures. Results suggest that self-report of positive assertion is more closely related to role-play measures and expert ratings of assertiveness than is self-report of negative assertion. Results are discussed in terms of relationship between assertive behavior and aggressive behavior in children and the need to unbind these two notions in future studies. Developmental issues which limit the finings are also addressed.

Performance of Disturbed and Nondisturbed Boys on a Role Play Test of Social Competence

A videotape-administered role play test of positive and negative assertion, the Behavioral Test of Interpersonal Competence for Children (BTICC), was administered to 17 emotionally disturbed and a matched sample of 17 nondisturbed boys ages 9-11 attending a nonurban school system. The two samples did not differ on mean age or IQ. Boys' role play responses to the videotaped narration and child prompt were scored from audiotapes for content, voice quality, latency, and number of words. The content of boys' responses to positive, negative, and combined assertion scenes as well as the incidence of inappropriate assertion (i.e., withdrawn or aggressive responses) on the negative assertion scenes differentiated the disturbed and nondisturbed boys. Two content scores entered into a significant discriminant function. The place of role plays in the assessment of boys suspected of behavioral or emotional disturbance is discussed. Future research is needed to determine the validity of the BTICC with more distinct clinical subgroups.

The Theology of Barmen: Its Partisan-Political Dimension

The first article of the Barmen Declaration asserts, without any qualification, that 'Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we are to hear, whom we are to trust and obey in life and in death' . Here we have expressed the exclusive norm or authority of the Confessing Church - Christ as the one Word of God - by which it alleged to judge all else. This positive assertion is followed immediately by a negation: 'We must reject the false doctrine that the Church could and would have to acknowledge as a source for its proclamation still other events and powers, forms and truths as God's revelation, outside of and besides this one Word of God.’ How, in the particular historical circumstances, did the delegates at the Barmen Synod in May, 1934, arrive at such unanimity in declaring an exclusively christological standard of judgment?

Top-down semantics of fair computations of logic programs

A successful SLD-derivation from a logic program has as result a positive assertion which is a logical implication of the program regarded as a theory of first-order logic. A finite and failed SLD-tree has as result a negation which is a logical implication of a certain theory which is a strengthened version of the program. In this paper we are concerned with a more general notion of result, one that is applicable to all SLD-derivations, independently of whether they continue on to success, to failure, or whether they are infinite. We discuss the application of our theorem to fair (in the sense of Lassez and Maher) infinite computations.

Cross-sample invariance of the structure of self-reported distress and difficulty in assertiveness: Experiences with the scale for interpersonal behaviour

Recent surveys of psychometric studies with respect to the construct and/or factorial validity of self-report assertion measures (e.g. Beck and Heimberg, 1983) point to the paucity of systematic research addressing such issues. To date no attempts have been made to examine the cross-sample generalisability of dimensions of assertion by means of objective techniques of factorial invariance (i.e. hypothesis-testing variations of principal factor or principal components analysis). Employing such a technique in the present study, distress and performance factors identified previously in a phobic population ( N = 703) with a Dutch measure of assertion (Scale for Interpersonal Behaviour) — the factors being: (I) DISPLAY OF NEGATIVE FEELINGS, (II) EXPRESSION of and DEALING with PERSONAL LIMITATIONS, (III) INITIATING ASSERTIVENESS and (IV) POSITIVE ASSERTION — were shown to be replicable in a new phobic sample ( N = 119) and invariant across three distinct samples, namely psychiatric outpatients ( N = 253), (non-patient) students ( N = 412) and (non-student) normals ( N = 250). Additional reliability and validity data supported the utility of a fifth overall measure within the Scale, which was termed GENERAL ASSERTIVENESS. These data also underline the contention of Futch et al. (1982) that it would be unwise to take any demonstrated multidimensionality of an assertion construct as evidence in the context of the trait-state issue (e.g. Eisler et al., 1975 ). However, the exclusive use of an overall assertion scale of a purportedly multidimensional measure is likely to invalidate research findings (including clinical research) since it masks relevant component information. To counteract this problem it is proposed that either the subscales should be used on their own or that the subscales and the overall scale should be used together. It is further concluded that (1) in developing and using an assertion measure a multidimensional approach should be taken, there being at least four distress and four performance factors to be taken account of; (2) of these four factors, that of Positive Assertion in particular should be considered more thoroughly in adequately defining and operationalising the assertion construct.

Assertive Behavior in Black and White American Undergraduates

Summary This study compared the assertive responses of black and white American undergraduates through the utilization of self-report measures and hypothetical intra- and interracial situations. Five self-report inventories measuring various aspects of assertiveness were administered to 60 males and females (30 blacks and 30 whites). Results indicated significant differences in the assertive responses of blacks and whites. Blacks scored higher on the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and tended to be rated as more assertive by raters. Whites made more requests in interpersonal interactions and showed more positive assertion toward blacks than blacks toward whites. Blacks were also more likely to respond differently to members of the opposite race by frequent use of black English vernacular with blacks and more aggressive responses toward whites. The only sex difference was a more positive attitude toward assertion by females.

The pre- and post-therapy measurement of communication skills of couples undergoing sex therapy at the Masters & Johnson Institute.

A battery of five paper and pencil questionnaires designed to measure empirically 10 specific skills hypothesized to be involved in effective interpersonal communication was employed to assess the pre- and post-therapy levels of these skills in couples undergoing treatment for sexual dysfunction at the Masters & Johnson Institute in St. Louis, Missouri. The females exhibited significant increases across the 2-week period of therapy for the following skills: positive assertion in intimate heterosexual peer relationships, assertiveness, verbal expression of feelings, and nonmaterial support and evidence of love. For the males significant increases in the following skills were obtained: assertiveness, verbal expression of feelings, self-disclosure, and tolerance of the less pleasant aspects of the loved one. A significant decrease was observed for the skill entitled feelings not expressed verbally to the loved one. Thus, both the females and males became more assertive and more able to express their feelings openly and thus more able to share more of themselves with their partners as a result of the therapy. These results lend empirical support to Masters and Johnson's theoretical model of communication and to the view that much more than simple behavior therapy is involved in a successful sex therapy program.

A task analysis of assertive behavior revisited: Replication and extension

The study was designed to replicate and extend Schwartz and Gottman's (1976) task analysis of the deficits in nonassertive behavior. The study extended previous research by comparing groups differing in assertiveness on measures of positive assertion, information-processing style, and social problem-solving ability. Contrary to Schwartz and Gottman, only high assertive subjects demonstrated competence in content knowledge and informal delivery of refusal responses. Also, high assertive subjects performed better under direct delivery conditions and reported more positive self-statements replicating previous findings. Although groups did not differ on component measures of positive assertion and social problem solving, high compared to low assertives were more abstract in information-processing style. This relationship was replicated with a second sample. Overall, the findings suggest that training in assertive behavior should give equal attention to deficits in both cognitive and overt response skills.

Milton and the Homeric Simile

VERY READER of Milton knows that the extended simile is a central feature of epic style going back ultimately to the Iliad: hence the presence of such similes in Paradise Lost. It is also a widespread assumption of Milton criticism today that, whereas in Homer's similes there is generally only a single point of correspondence with the narrative, Milton's are marked by multiple correspondence. As James Whaler puts it in an influential article Miltonic Simile, key to fundamental difference between complex simile as found in Homer and in Milton lies in Milton's predominant method of exact homologation.' It is also widely believed, whether as tacit assumption or as positive assertion, that such homologation (all other things being equal) of itself confers extra merit. It is my purpose in this essay to argue that the first of these two propositions can be accepted only with considerable modification, and that the second is the sort of restrictive dogma that inhibits that flexible response to literature which humane studies ought to foster (that, too, is a dogma, but not, I hope, a restrictive one). Curiously, there seems to be no definitive treatment of the relationship between Milton's similes and those of Homer and Virgil: the matter is worth reopening. First a few basic observations. The principle of the simile is that of idem in alio: the poet discerns the like in the unlike. Indeed, without some degree of unlikeness there would be no simile at all. Perfect homologation in a simile would presumably merit Dryden's sneer, So just, so like tautology they fell (MacFlecknoe, line 56). The things compared may be more or less dissimilar, but the degree of unlikeness cannot be regarded as being in itself grounds for praise or blame. There are successful similes where the objects of the comparison are fairly homogeneous, others where they are heterogeneous. A further distinction is

The topography of assertive behavior in positive and negative situations

Variations in assertive response topography and in the type and frequency of reported self-statements were studied in positive and negative assertion situations, with male and female, high and low assertive normal adults. Significant differences in behavior were found between high and low assertive groups, men and women, and positive and negative situations. Self-statements and assertive behavior were significantly correlated in positive situations, but not in negative assertion situations.

Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and College Self-Expression Scale Scores as Predictors of Assertive Behavior

The present study attempted to assess the feasibility of predicting from a person's performance on the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and the College Self-expression Scale his ability to respond with positive assertion to situations requiring such behaviors. Scores on individual Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and College Self-expression Scale items were correlated with ratings of performance in situations requiring the expression of positive assertion, and with total Rathus Assertiveness Schedule and College Self-expression Scale scores to assess the validity of these instruments in predicting assertive behavior. A subject's total Rathus Assertiveness Schedule score, his total College Self-expression Scale score, and his score on items which purported to measure ability to respond appropriately in situations requiring positively assertive responses were poor predictors of ability to perform in realistic situations. The best predictor of actual performance in the present study was an individual's assessment of his over-all level of assertiveness.

Situational determinants of assertive behavior in depressed alcoholics

Assertive situations varying in social-interpersonal context were administered to depressed alcoholic patients by means of role playing. Half of the situations required the expression of negative (hostile) assertiveness while half required positive (commendatory) assertion to both male and female partners. In vivo responses were rated on two measures of speech content and four non-verbal behaviors while tape recordings were rated on seven measures of content. Patients rated the adequacy of their own responses. Results indicated that assertive behaviors varied as a function of sex and social context providing further support for a stimulus-specific theory of assertiveness. Suggestions were made for the assessment and treatment of assertive skill deficits within comprehensive treatment programs for alcoholism.

Assessment of assertiveness in female psychiatric patients: Motor and autonomic measures

Sixteen role-played situations requiring assertive responding were administered to 46 female psychiatric patients. Responses to these situations were videotaped while two physiological measures (heart rate, finger pulse volume) were monitored concurrently. One half of the situations involved the expression of positive assertion; the other half the expression of negative assertion. In one half of the situations the response was directed to a female partner; in the other half to a male partner. Analysis of behavioral and physiological data tend to support a “stimulus-specific” conception of assertiveness, confirming the work of Eisler et al. (1975).

Sexuality in Samoan art forms.

This article explores the manifestations of sexuality in Samona as they are revealed through songs, poetry, dance, gestures, verbal expressions, stories, and games. For each of these art forms, texts, and translations of original material are presented, as an aid to discerning the uses and functions of sexuality as they are applied by Samoans for Samoans; to this end, formulalized joking of various types is seen as the medium through which the humorous element of sexuality is expressed. Elsewhere, sexuality functions to achieve and sustain individual attention. The explicitly sexuality functions to achieve and sustain individual attention. The explicitly sexual references in duneral and marriage songs, on the other hand, constitute affirmations of social values, incorporated in long-established rites. In what is tantamount to artistic license, performance of song, poetry, and dance containing sexual elements or references that would be prohibited in other contexts is constituted as acceptable behavior. In marked contrast to nineteenth-century writings, and the opinions of the popular press, sexuality in Samoa is far from free in its modes of expression, but rather adheres to traditional formalized patterns which determine its occasions, participants, and verbal and kinetic limits. Although not indispensable as a means of personal expression, it generally provides additional opportunities for the creative and aggressive individual to demonstarate his artistic talents and therby contribute to his own social elevation. As an element of verbalized group sentiment, it is a positive assertion of Samoan values, astatement of social solidarity.

Source and concept evaluation as determinants of inferred assertions

Within the context of congruity theory, the following hypotheses were tested: (l)When both source and concept (where concept is another person) are evaluated with a similar sign, a positive assertion will be assumed; otherwise, a negative assertion will be assumed. (2) What source is assumed to assert about concept should not differ from what concept is assumed to assert about source. Sixty-four Ss were given a list of historical figures and asked to choose what they thought each would say about some of the others from a list of assertions that ranged from definitely positive to definitely negative. The results supported Hypothesis 1. While Hypothesis 2 was not supported, there was a systematic effect, whereby the less positively evaluated figure in each pair was inferred to be more charitable in his assertions than vice versa.