Microanalysis as ideology critique

Microanalysis – understood as the ‘zooming in’ on the details of everday social practices and situations – is an increasingly popular tool of academic study in the discipline of International Relations (IR) and beyond. However, the critical potential of so-called micro-moves is today largely ignored. This chapter seeks to revive this potential. It elaborates four different strategies for using microanalysis as a tool for criticizing theory as ideology

The task of critique in times of post-truth politics

Post-truth politics poses a specific problem for critical theories. The problem is that the relativisation of facts – the claim that knowledge is merely a product of power, history, and perspective – is a core aspect of present-day ideological thinking. Critical theories have been unable to respond to this challenge, because their critique has been directed against the opposite claim, namely the naturalisation of facts. While acknowledging this problem, this article argues that post-truth discourse actually combines relativisation and naturalisation. It does not simply relativise truth, but also naturalises the belief in specific ‘facts’ – notably the belief that ‘conspiracies are behind it all’. Once we recognise the twin character of post-truth, we must reject the view of Bruno Latour and others who have made critique responsible for the crisis. Instead, it then becomes apparent that there are deep and disconcerting similarities between post-truth politics and the totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies of the twentieth century. The task of critique is to confront and counter this resurgent ideology, thereby providing direction and orientation in the struggle for emancipation

Sad but true? - How induced emotional states differentially bias self-rated Big Five personality traits

Querengässer J, Schindler S. Sad but true? - How induced emotional states differentially bias self-rated Big Five personality traits. BMC Psychology. 2014;2(1): 14.Background The Big Five are seen as stable personality traits. This study hypothesized that their measurement via self-ratings is differentially biased by participants’ emotions. The relationship between habitual emotions and personality should be mirrored in a patterned influence of emotional states upon personality scores. Methods We experimentally induced emotional states and compared baseline Big Five scores of ninety-eight German participants (67 female; mean age 22.2) to their scores after the induction of happiness or sadness. Manipulation checks included the induced emotion’s intensity and durability. Results The expected differential effect could be detected for neuroticism and extraversion and as a trend for agreeableness. Post-hoc analyses showed that only sadness led to increased neuroticism and decreased extraversion scores. Oppositely, happiness did not decrease neuroticism, but there was a trend for an elevation on extraversion scores. Conclusion Results suggest a specific effect of sadness on self-reported personality traits, particularly on neuroticism. Sadness may trigger different self-concepts in susceptible people, biasing perceived personality. This bias could be minimised by tracking participants’ emotional states prior to personality measurement

Identifying barriers towards a post-growth economy - a political economy view

In this paper, we take a political economy perspective on barriers that inhibit a transition beyond the growth-paradigm - that is, we frame transition barriers as looming distributional conflicts. Within the current paradigm, distributional conflicts are mitigated via economic growth. Hence, the solution of these distributional conflicts is a prerequisite for a successful transition. Specifically, we analyze three examples of transition barriers. First, unemployment represents the most commonly cited reason why economic growth is considered indispensable. Second, pension schemes rely on economic growth to offset demographic change. Third, alternative indicators to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have not succeeded in replacing GDP as a standard metric of economic welfare. In each of these three examples, we identify actor-interest constellations that foster the status quo. We conclude that compensating those actors who would presumably be worse off due to a transition beyond the growth paradigm may be inevitable to mitigate and overcome the distributional effects to be triggered by the transition

Emotion in Context: How Sender Predictability and Identity Affect Processing of Words as Imminent Personality Feedback

Recent findings suggest that communicative context affects the timing and magnitude of emotion effects in word processing. In particular, social attributions seem to be one important source of plasticity for the processing of affectively charged language. Here, we investigate the timing and magnitude of ERP responses toward positive, neutral, and negative trait adjectives during the anticipation of putative socio-evaluative feedback from different senders (human and computer) varying in predictability. In the first experiment, during word presentation participants could not anticipate whether a human or a randomly acting computer sender was about to give feedback. Here, a main effect of emotion was observed only on the late positive potential (LPP), showing larger amplitudes for positive compared to neutral adjectives. In the second study the same stimuli and set-up were used, but a block-wise presentation was realized, resulting in fixed and fully predictable sender identity. Feedback was supposedly given by an expert (psychotherapist), a layperson (unknown human), and again by a randomly acting computer. Main effects of emotion started with an increased P1 for negative adjectives, followed by effects at the N1 and early posterior negativity (EPN), showing both largest amplitudes for positive words, as well as for the LPP, where positive and negative words elicited larger amplitudes than neutral words. An interaction revealed that emotional LPP modulations occurred only for a human sender. Finally, regardless of content, anticipating human feedback led to larger P1 and P3 components, being highest for the putative expert. These findings demonstrate the malleability of emotional language processing by social contexts. When clear predictions can be made, our brains rapidly differentiate between emotional and neutral information, as well as between different senders. Attributed human presence affects emotional language processing already during feedback anticipation, in line with a selective gating of attentional resources via anticipatory social significance attributions. By contrast, emotion effects occur much later, when crucial social context information is still missing. These findings demonstrate the context-dependence of emotion effects in word processing and are particularly relevant since virtual communication with unknown senders, whose identity is inferred rather than perceived, has become reality for millions of people

Is there a monetary growth imperative?

We do not know; but simplistic answers to the title's question should be mistrusted. In this paper, we first provide a literature overview, laying out the vast diversity of theories on the role of monetary aspects for economic growth both within mainstream growth theory and within heterodox perspectives. In fact, completely contradicting results have been derived from a variety of reasonable theories. Based on this literature survey, we explore the narrative background of the most prominent theories as each of them is related to and justified by a distinct narrative. For instance, mainstream growth textbooks are based on the assumption that "money is a neutral medium of exchange" while other approaches hold that "zero interest rates are a precondition for a stationary economy". We show how these narratives - though they may well contain some truth - lend themselves to serve as myths, which rather inhibit than facilitate our understanding of the complex relationship between monetary variables and economic growth. Finally, we discuss consequences for the degrowth debate in terms of practical proposals for overcoming assumed growth imperatives as well as theoretical consequences