Affective neuroscience, emotional regulation, and international relations

International relations (IR) has witnessed an emerging interest in neuroscience, particularly for its relevance to a now widespread scholarship on emotions. Contributing to this scholarship, this article draws on the subfields of affective neuroscience and neuropsychology, which remain largely unexplored in IR. Firstly, the article draws on affective neuroscience in illuminating affect's defining role in consciousness and omnipresence in social behavior, challenging the continuing elision of emotions in mainstream approaches. Secondly, it applies theories of depth neuropsychology, which suggest a neural predisposition originating in the brain's higher cortical regions to attenuate emotional arousal and limit affective consciousness. This predisposition works to preserve individuals' self-coherence, countering implicit assumptions about rationality and motivation within IR theory. Thirdly, it outlines three key implications for IR theory. It argues that affective neuroscience and neuropsychology offer a route towards deep theorizing of ontologies and motivations. It also leads to a reassessment of the social regulation of emotions, particularly as observed in institutions, including the state. It also suggests a productive engagement with constructivist and poststructuralist approaches by addressing the agency of the body in social relations. The article concludes by sketching the potential for a therapeutically-attuned approach to IR

The whole Bible painted in our houses : Visual Narrative and Religious Polemic in Early Lutheran Art

(Excerpt) In his discussion of the psychodynamics of orality, the Jesuit linguist and philosopher Walter Ong writes that \u27\u27the interiorizing force of the oral word relates in a special way to the sacral, to the ultimate concerns of existence. In most religions the spoken word functions integrally in ceremonial and devotional life ... In Christianity, for example, the Bible is read aloud at liturgical services. For God is thought of always as \u27speaking\u27 to human beings, not writing to them ... [Indeed] the Hebrew word dabar, which means word, means also event and thus refers directly to the spoken wor

Orchestration of the Marketing Strategy under Competitive Dynamics

Constructing suitable marketing strategy and implementing it effectively is an art and science both like orchestration of a symphony. The discussion in this paper blends this analogy with the science of marketing demonstrating the levels of strategy development in a competitive marketplace. The paper presents the marketing-mix in contemporary context and argues that performance of a marketing firm can be maximized, when a firm develops a creative marketing strategy and achieves marketing strategy implementation effectiveness. The discussion in the paper reveals that marketing managers of different levels simultaneously operate within the firm and perceive the need for strategy development with varied preferences. A consequence of this is development of robust strategies and their effective implementation which, in turn, leads to increased market performance. Thus, it is important for researchers to investigate various strategy integration perspectives and this paper provides guidance by reviewing the existing literature.Marketing strategy, strategy integration, marketing-mix, customer value,strategy implementation, market competition, risk factors, brand building, customer centric strategy, routes to market

The Rhetorical Algorithm: WikiLeaks and the Elliptical Secrets of Donald J. Trump

Algorithms were a generative force behind many of the leaks and secrets that dominated the 2016 election season. Taking the form of the identity-anonymizing Tor software that protected the identity of leakers, mathematical protocols occupied a prominent place in the secrets generated during the presidential campaign. This essay suggests that the rhetorical trope of ellipsis offers an equally crucial, algorithmic formula for explaining the public production of these secrets and leaks. It then describes the 2016 DNC leak and Donald Trump’s “I love Wikileaks” moment using the trope of ellipsis, which marks a discursive omission or gap in official executive discourse

Life-Space Foam: a Medium for Motivational and Cognitive Dynamics

General stochastic dynamics, developed in a framework of Feynman path integrals, have been applied to Lewinian field--theoretic psychodynamics, resulting in the development of a new concept of life--space foam (LSF) as a natural medium for motivational and cognitive psychodynamics. According to LSF formalisms, the classic Lewinian life space can be macroscopically represented as a smooth manifold with steady force-fields and behavioral paths, while at the microscopic level it is more realistically represented as a collection of wildly fluctuating force-fields, (loco)motion paths and local geometries (and topologies with holes). A set of least-action principles is used to model the smoothness of global, macro-level LSF paths, fields and geometry. To model the corresponding local, micro-level LSF structures, an adaptive path integral is used, defining a multi-phase and multi-path (multi-field and multi-geometry) transition process from intention to goal-driven action. Application examples of this new approach include (but are not limited to) information processing, motivational fatigue, learning, memory and decision-making.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, elsar

New Approaching in Managing Roles

The world economic crisis has caused profound shifts at all levels of the society, pushing most of the economic entities to adapt to new realities of the market. The changes occurred often hit the emotional and professional concerns of the entire staff in a company. During this process, the managers and employees that lead and implement such decisions, cope with unpleasant postures and alarming prospective, and also inherent issues and conflicts, due to a psychological dynamic that appears and serves to stated or hidden goals. They are restless about a specific change and feel threaten of its possible consequences, tending to preserve their attitudes and opinions regarding the changing agenda. Related to decisional roles that subscribe the managing behavior, the present article aims to analyze a new approach in management, namely - transforming the “problem solver” role into a “crisis solver” one, by taking into consideration the psychodynamics and the inclusion mechanism into organization.crisis, problem, conflict, change, role, psychodynamic, involve, inclusion.

Interdependence of Personality Traits and Brand Identity in Measuring Brand Performance

Brand personality is an attractive and appealing concept in the marketing of today. Consumers perceive the brand on dimensions that typically capture a person’s personality, and extend that to the domain of brands. The discussions in the paper are woven around the issues concerning brand strength, brand identity and cognitive relationship between the consumer personality attributes and brand perceptions. Human personality traits that affect the brand performance are critically examined and role of emotions and attitudes including personality, image, reputation and trust (PIRT) in measuring the performance of brand is argued in the paper. An emerging brand strategy concept in context to bottom of pyramid market segment is also discussed illustratively in this paper.Cognitive behavior, brand identity, personality traits, bottom of the pyramid market, brand image, trust, corporate reputation, mass market, brand performance, customer value

Reflexivity in the research process: psychoanalytic observations

This paper highlights what psychoanalysis can add to discussions of reflexivity, by specifically describing how reflexivity is conceptualized and fostered on psychoanalytic observation methods courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London. It is demonstrated that this psychological form of reflexivity is relevant to empirical and conceptual work and shown that it shares interesting parallels with debates about reflexivity in social research methods, while also being able to contribute to discussions of what constitutes reflexivity and what kinds of methods course might facilitate it. Reflexivity is often discussed in relation to a researcher’s empirical work, but this paper argues that reflexivity is equally needed in relation to the academic context in which most research and learning takes place. This paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic approaches to learning stimulate a reflexive relation to empirical and conceptual work and it provides examples of reflexivity from a two year infant observation and a research project on romantic love (involving conceptual and biographical research)

The Psychodynamics of Theatrical Spectatorship

The Psychodynamics of Theatrical Spectatorshi