Moral Imbecility

1924 ◽  
Vol 70 (290) ◽  
pp. 362-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian D. Suttie

There is a type of social psychology which finds the explanation of man's social behaviour in a hypothetical “disposition” of his mind. This motive-complex is conceived as specialized for the function of adapting conduct to social life, and as being in itself relatively closely integrated, developing and functioning as a whole. Of this hypothetical “gregarious instinct” McDougall goes so far as to say: “For it is highly probable that instinctive dispositions are Mendelian units” (Journ of Abn. Psych, and Soc. Psych., vol. xvi, p. 316). This plainly suggests that the unity of the social disposition (its existence as a discrete factor in development) is to be regarded as antedating experience—that it is an ultimate datum for psychology not susceptible to analysis, and is not a derivative of any other known motive such as “love,” “fear,” or “hope of reward.” This “instinct” interpretation of social behaviour has been criticized on many grounds (as unfruitful for psychology and incompatible with biological fact); but of course the demonstration of a Mendelian transmission of the social disposition would compel us to regard it as an element of character. Our conception of mental development and of the “socialization” of the individual, of the relative significance of upbringing as compared with organic endowment and our whole psycho-pathology depend upon our acceptance or rejection of McDougall's view. If he is right in regard to the germinal “unit” determination of the social disposition, criminological studies should offer verification. I propose, therefore, to consider how far we are justified in regarding moral insanity and moral imbecility as true “morbid entities.”

Author(s):  
Samir Okasha

Inclusive fitness theory, originally due to W. D. Hamilton, is a popular approach to the study of social evolution, but shrouded in controversy. The theory contains two distinct aspects: Hamilton’s rule (rB > C); and the idea that individuals will behave as if trying to maximize their inclusive fitness in social encounters. These two aspects of the theory are logically separable but often run together. A generalized version of Hamilton’s rule can be formulated that is always true, though whether it is causally meaningful is debatable. However, the individual maximization claim only holds true if the payoffs from the social encounter are additive. The notion that inclusive fitness is the ‘goal’ of individuals’ social behaviour is less robust than some of its advocates acknowledge.


Res Publica ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 36 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 343-359
Author(s):  
Marc Jacquemain ◽  
René Doutrelepont ◽  
Michel Vandekeere

At first view, the methodology of survey research may seem rather unsuitable to the study of such "holistic" phenomena as collective and social identities.  That difficulty vanishes - at least partly - as soon as we consider social identity as the link between the individual and his belongings, as does the "social identity theory", developed from the work of Taffel and Turner.  From there on, survey research may prove to be a useful device to cope with some main characteristics of social identity: mainly its variability among groups and classes within a same society and its particular sensitivity to socio-political contexts.  Survey research, combined with the social identity theory may help to test historical assumptions at a macro-social level. It may also give some ''flesh" and some additional realism to the micro-theories of social behaviour, which are too often limited by their conception of a strictly rational and interested agent.


Author(s):  
Ю.В. Ковалева

Представлен историографический анализ развития понятия большие социальные группы и историко-психологический анализ социальных феноменов , связанных с массовыми общественными явлениями в России. Сформулированы актуальные проблемы психологии больших социальных групп, к которым относятся неоднородность оснований для их выделения, недостаточная дифференцированность со сходными понятиями, неравномерность исследований в различные временные периоды и идеологическая нагруженность их разработки. Данная работа была ответом на необходимость восполнения знаний о процессах в таких группах, происходивших в различные исторические периоды развития социальной психологии, с соответствующим им уровнем научного осмысления, а также обобщением этой целостной картины на уровне современного понимания и формулировка перспективных направлений исследований. Целью исследования является установление связи между определением и основными свойствами понятия «большие социальные группы» (его синонимов, аналогов) и особенностями социальной ситуации в определенный период времени, а также реконструкция социальных процессов данного исторического этапа. Проверялась гипотеза о том, что большие социальные группы как феномены социальной жизни формировались в соответствии с историческим временем, а соответствующее им понятие и его свойства с одной стороны отвечали уровню развития гуманитарного знания, а с другой - пытались удовлетворить общественный и политический запрос в объяснении и управлении социальной ситуацией. Использовались методы историографии социальной психологии и психолого-исторической реконструкции . Первая часть статьи посвящена анализу первых двух этапов развития социальной психологии - с середины XIX до начала XX вв. и в 1920-е гг. XX в. The historiographic analysis of the development of the concept of large social groups and historical and psychological study of social phenomena associated with mass social phenomena was presented. Topical problems of the psychology of large social groups are formulated, including heterogeneity of the grounds for their isolation, insufficient differentiation with similar concepts, uneven research in various periods, and ideological loading of the history of its development. The study's main problem was the need to replenish the processes in such groups that took place in various historical periods of social psychology development as well as a synthesis of this holistic picture at the level of modern understanding and the formulation of promising areas of research. The study's purpose was to establish a connection between the definition and the basic properties of the concept of "large social groups" (and its synonyms, analogs) and the peculiarities of the social situation in a certain period, as well as the reconstruction of social processes of this historical segment. The hypothesis was tested that large social groups as phenomena of social life were formed under the past time. The concept and its properties were corresponding to them, on the one hand, compared to the level of development of humanitarian knowledge. On the other, they tried to satisfy the social and political requests to understand and manage the social situation. Methods of the historiography of the history of social psychology and psychological and historical reconstruction were used. The article's first part was devoted to the analysis of the early two stages of the development of social psychology - from the middle of the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries and 1920 of the XX century.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 93-146

Culture and awareness are two flexible concepts that are related to the social nature and its development, and the creative and scientific activities of humans since time immemorial. Awareness is developed by humans living their social life, the way they react towards their environment that consists of people, the average of their knowledge and the way they react to the things around them. What distinguishing the individual self-awareness is the human's ability to make any decision and their knowledge of their general behavior. in the light of taking what we need of the information, data, properties and characteristics, we give the youth their needs of activities, movement, awareness and culture through setting codified thoughtful programs. Therefore, we need to know the following: Are the attitudes of the males differ from the attitudes of the females of practicing sports? The importance of the research lies in the fact that it is one of the few studies that takes into consideration sport culture and health of an important segment, which is the youth. One of the results of the research is that the physical activity that the youth do in sports centers (gyms) that brings important benefits like prevention of diseases. The research was conducted on (202) of males which is 63.3% and (98) females which is (32.7). The results of the research show that most of those whom the research was conducted on were from the age of 18 to 25, which makes 47% of the study sample.


Author(s):  
Anna Leander

The terms habitus and field are useful heuristic devices for thinking about power relations in international studies. Habitus refers to a person’s taken-for-granted, unreflected—hence largely habitual—way of thinking and acting. The habitus is a “structuring structure” shaping understandings, attitudes, behavior, and the body. It is formed through the accumulated experience of people in different fields. Using fields to study the social world is to acknowledge that social life is highly differentiated. A field can be exceedingly varied in scope and scale. A family, a village, a market, an organization, or a profession may be conceptualized as a field provided it develops its own organizing logic around a stake at stake. Each field is marked by its own taken-for-granted understanding of the world, implicit and explicit rules of behavior, and valuation of what confers power onto someone: that is, what counts as “capital.” The analysis of power through the habitus/field makes it possible to transcend the distinctions between the material and the “ideational” as well as between the individual and the structural. Moreover, working with habitus/field in international studies problematizes the role played by central organizing divides, such as the inside/outside and the public/private; and can uncover politics not primarily structured by these divides. Developing research drawing on habitus/field in international studies will be worthwhile for international studies scholars wishing to raise and answer questions about symbolic power/violence.


Author(s):  
Nataliia Lapshova ◽  

The article presents the main results of an empirical study of the factors of personal acquisition of social status in a small group in the field of leisure. Reflecting the position of the individual in the system of society, the social status of the individual is determined by the set of rights and responsibilities of the individual in the context of social ties, groups and systems. Thus, social status is a component that simultaneously affects the individual, and which, in some way, depends on the individual. Since social status is a complex and multicomponent phenomenon, it was possible to determine its socio-psychological component structure. Social status was studied through sociometric positions of respondents. The entire sample was divided into 4 groups depending on the number of elections: neglected, rejected, accepted, stars. It was found that the factors of social status in the permissive context are the acceptance of others, the psychological climate of the team, focus on the present, social approval, lack of normative behavior (conformity). Factors of social status in the working context are personal characteristics and features of group dynamics, so it should be taken into account in combination with individual psychological characteristics. Factors of each social status for separate social groups were also singled out. The social status of the individual is an important component of the social life of every person. Its main function is to organize, design, regulate and conduct groups and their members. In the leisure environment for a group of technical professional orientation, the factors of acquiring social status for certain groups are the following characteristics: neglected – group cohesion, unaccepted – socio-psychological adaptation, accepted – the tendency to affiliation, stars – acceptance of others; for the group of humanitarian professional orientation: neglected – acceptance of others, unaccepted – group cohesion, accepted – the psychological climate of the group, the stars – emotional comfort.


Author(s):  
Claudia Storti ◽  
Floriana Colao

The book Riflessioni interdisciplinari per un dibattito contemporaneo su violenza, ordine, sicurezza offers an interesting interdisciplinary perspective on aspects of the social life that undoubtedly show continuity between past and present and that exert a strong influence on criminal systems. If fear, as an instinct, constitutes a natural defense tool for the individual, ‘collective’ fear is a phenomenon open to different declinations, not all positive, as we will see, for example, in the current hypertrophy of the criminal law. Sometimes collective fear is triggered by objective causes (e.g. by natural catastrophes, epidemics, famines, wars or revolutions); sometimes, instead, collective fear is generated by the so called ‘culture of fear’. Such culture instills and amplifies a sense of insecurity towards true or presumed enemies by using propaganda, rhetoric or violence (just think at the ‘function’ of terrorism). This insecurity, in turn, drives people to search safety and strengthens the power of those who offer protection even with the tools of the criminal law.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 38-43
Author(s):  
T. G. Yermakova

Education of students in today’s conditions requires new ideas and concepts that are related to the peculiarities of the socio-economic situation in society, namely: revaluation of values, changes in priorities of prestigious professions, contradictory attitude to education in the labor market, lack of a clear youth policy, adequate to modern conditions.Today’s education should become not just one of the subsystems of the social sphere, which satisfies a number of personal needs, but also a specific domain of social life, in which the future is modeled, resources of development are formed, and the negative effects of the functioning of other social institutions are compensated. As a result, the education system essentially extends its sphere of influence. One of the most important characteristics of student youth is its social needs, a large proportion of which is implemented in the field of education. Concerning higher education, certain requirements are put forward regarding the implementation of social needs of student youth; at the same time it is the institutional environment that mostly influences the formation of student social.Defining the development vectors of the education system requires the search for answers to questions relating to contemporary students, its social needs and expectations in relation to higher education, as well as the clarification of the conditions correspondence that education creates to realize its demands. The article highlights the peculiarities of student social needs in the field of education and their implementation; the content of such concepts as «needs», «social needs», «educational needs» were clarified.It was emphasized that social needs are connected with the inclusion of the individual in the family, in various social groups and communities, in the various spheres of production and non-production activities, in the life of society as a whole. These are the needs for work, social and economic activity, as well as spiritual culture, that is, everything that is a product of social life. They are needs of a special kind, the satisfaction of which is necessary to support the life of the social person, social groups and society as a whole.Social needs are met by the organizational efforts of society members through social institutions. Satisfying needs ensures social stability and social progress, dissatisfaction generates social conflicts. Social institutions are the leading components of the social structure of society, which integrate and coordinate the actions of society members, social groups and regulate social relations in various spheres of public life. Four groups of social needs were defined:- Vital for the social person needs, whose dissatisfaction leads to the elimination of a social person or the revolutionary transformation of social institutions, within which this satisfaction occurs;- Needs, the satisfaction of which ensures the functioning of the social person at the level of social norms, as well as allows the evolution of social institutions to be realized;- Needs, the satisfaction of which occurs at the level of minimum social norms, which ensures the preservation of the social person, but not its development; - Needs, the satisfaction of which provides comfortable (for data of socio-cultural area and social time) conditions of operation and development.The article gives attention to the relation between the concepts of «social needs» and «educational needs» and shows where they overlap. The existence of educational needs is an essential feature of students. Educational need is a need arising from the contradiction between the existing and necessary (desired) level of education and encourages the person to eliminate this contradiction.Educational needs were defined as the needs for the formation of the education means of those personal qualities that contribute to personal self-realization and the formation of personal qualities in the field of education that will enable them to obtain the desired social benefits and improve the social well-being of the individual. Such qualities are: high level of intellectual development; theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary for professional activity; communicative skills and a high level of culture; personal qualities (integrity, workability, creativity, etc.). Education itself is a factor that allows the formation and accumulation of socially significant qualities in an individual’s arsenal that enable them to receive the benefits, satisfy the urgent needs and be realized as an active and active-oriented member of society.It was emphasized that in today’s conditions, students according to their characteristics are quite different from all other sections of the population, first of all ideological formation, influence mobility and their kinds of needs, which to a great extent determine its social well-being.Social needs of students are considered in connection with the functions of education, primarily with the functions of intelligence reproduction of society, vocational, economic and social. The article used data from nationwide surveys of students «Higher Education in Ukraine: Students’ Public Opinion» and «Higher Education in Reform Conditions: Changes in Public Opinion» conducted by Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in 2015 and 2017 respectively; the data of a sociological survey «Values of Ukrainian Youth», conducted in 2016 by the Center for Independent Sociological Research «OMEGA», by request of Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine.Based on the data of sociological research, we concluded that the level of social needs satisfaction of students in the field of higher education is not high. We need more detailed analysis of students who are studying at various educational institutions, as well as to identify the trends that are characteristic for education sections in different areas of study.


2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62
Author(s):  
Katarína Lehutová ◽  
Štefan Cisko

The individuals and companies purchasing goods and services for some other than personal consumption, e.g. for the family member, family usage or as a present for another person, are called organizational consumers. They operate on the organizational consumer market. These markets usually have fewer buyers but purchase is done in much greater amounts than typical consumer markets and to distinguish them from typical consumer markets they are also geographically concentrated. There are four main components of this market: industrial, reseller, government and foreign market. For the purpose of this paper, the organizational customer is understood the organization which sells products for another customers. In general, every consumer tries to apply their rights, fight for them. The interest of traders is usually hidden somewhere in the background. The main aim of this paper is to summarize how important the organizations are, highlight the role they play in the society, their development in time, the authenticity, which distinguished it from the individual consumer and to describe their importance and impact on the social life and economics in the Slovak Republic. Research conducted in European countries showed that the recession had a significant impact on all types of consumers. The paper analyses the results of those researches and finally depicts if the situation is the same in the Slovak Republic using the statistic data analysis, description and comparison. Key words: organizational consumers, consumer typology, consumer behavior, retailers.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 367-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Nadler

Our social norms and moral values shape our beliefs about the propriety of different types of market exchanges. This review considers social and moral influences on beliefs about property and the consequences of these beliefs for the legal regulation of property. The focus is mainly on empirical evidence from social psychology, with additions from related areas like cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and other social sciences. After briefly reviewing empirical findings on perceptions of property at the level of the individual person, I examine how social relationships shape perceptions about ownership and exchange of property, as well as the boundaries of the broad category of property. Finally, I explore one important type of socially embedded property—the home—and how social psychological conceptions of property as embedded in social relationships have clashed with the development of the legal doctrine of eminent domain.


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