The ‘anti-social’ nature of prosocial research; a psychosocial critique

This article provides a critical review of recent psychological articles on prosocial behaviour. Even though it focuses on a specific section of this literature – giving to charities and prosocial responses to humanitarian disasters – the paper aims to offer a wider critique as it interrogates the epistemological and methodological underpinnings of the prosocial literature as a whole. It aims to illustrate how the problematic aspects of traditional quantitative, deductive, experimental research in prosocial behaviour in general, when applied to giving to charities, preclude a deeper and more complex understanding of a phenomenon quintessentially social and altruistic. I identify three specific issues that make mainstream approaches to prosocial behaviour problematic and limited in scope. The first relates to the insularity of mainstream psychology and the lack of contextualisation of its findings, in particular the problematic neglect of ideological and socio-historical factors in prosocial behaviour. The second relates to mainstream psychology's disregard for the role played by conflict, contradiction and ambivalence, in attitudes and decision making as well as in the emotional aspects of prosocial behaviour. The third looks at the constraints imposed by scientifically inspired methods, how they predetermine the range of participants' responses and make it hard to apply the findings to real life situations. I claim that these epistemological and methodological constraints severely limit the applicability and comprehensiveness of current research. The discussion of these issues is woven through the review and uses some specific studies to illustrate the limitations imposed by these constraints. Throughout the paper I also argue for the need to incorporate a psychosocial approach to research into prosocial behaviour

Caring in crisis? Public responses to mediated humanitarian knowledge

Drawing on an original UK-wide study of public responses to humanitarian issues and how NGOs communicate them, this timely book provides the first evidence-based psychosocial account of how and why people respond or not to messages about distant suffering.. The book highlights what NGOs seek to achieve in their communications and explores how their approach and hopes match or not what the public want, think and feel about distant suffering

A psychoanalytic feminist inquiry into shame

This thesis offers an inquiry into shame; in particular a reading of some women's lived experience of shame from a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective. This work also reflects critically on epistemological issues and tensions between the adoption of qualitative methods of research and psychoanalytic, feminist and post-structuralist readings of texts. The thesis starts with an outline of its contents, a reflexive history of the research, and a brief introduction on shame. Chapters one to three review the main body of literature on shame, critically reflecting on how shame is constructed within different theoretical frameworks. This investigation begins with the work of Sigmund Freud and the different constructions of shame in Freudian metapsychology (chapter one) and continues with a review of the literature on the role of shame in social and interpsychic dynamics (chapter two). Chapter three focuses on the literature arguing for a crucial link between shame and femininity. Epistemological and methodological issues are discussed in chapters four; while chapter five provides a detailed description of how the research was carried out and of the analysis of the text. Chapters six to ten are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews on women's experience of shame. The discursive analysis investigates the ideological function of the shameful subject position within the context of the themes identified in the thematic decomposition of the interviews. The conclusion summaries and reflects on the thesis as a whole; it also comments on some implications of the different readings of shame proposed in the thesis

States of mind in conflict: offerings and translations from the psychoanalytic and psychosocial fields

Drawing on the fields of psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies, this article investigates the states of mind of both the parties in conflict and the mediators. It proposes that, when framed as a relational intersubjective encounter, mediation can have transformative potentials beyond the political goals. The article aims to rebalance the current rationalistic orientation in mediation and argues that valuing and engaging with the affective register in mediation processes and the states of mind of the mediation actors can better equip mediators to understand and deal with the unpredictability, instability, and blockages in mediation processes. The article discusses the relevance for mediation of selected clinical and psychological concepts and proposes them as potential tools for mediators. It looks at the role of trauma, mentalization, shame, and group identity when considering the state of mind of parties in conflict and proposes countertransference, emotional attunement, and empathic mutual positioning as facilitative skills when reflecting on the role of the mediator. It discusses the need for mediators to reflect on their own story and investment in the process and urges practitioners to consider the toxic impact of mediation on the mediator’s well-being. The article concludes with recommendation for training and practice

Landscapes of empathy: spatial scenarios, metaphors and metonymies in responses to distant suffering

This study re-analyses focus group data on responses to human rights abuses, to investigate how participants’ experiences in their local social and physical worlds influence empathy with distant suffering others. Metaphors, metonymies, narratives and typifying scenarios were identified in the discourse dynamics. Scenarios, metaphors and metonymies of space and place emerge as particularly significant in the dialogic co-construction of moral reasoning. Embodied experiences, specifically encounters with people begging in the street, become emblematic of perceived threats to personal space that should feel private and secure. Systematic spatial metaphors construct a landscape of empathic understanding with an optimal distance for empathy, neither too close nor too far. Faced with distant suffering others in prompt materials, participants respond with parallel reasoning on the symbolic landscape. Implications for increasing empathic understanding of distant others are discussed

The mediation of humanitarianism: towards a research framework

This article examines existing research on the role of mediated narratives and images of distant suffering in cultivating moral response, identifying two central strands: Philosophically oriented accounts and empirical studies of text, audience, and production. On the basis of this critical review, we suggest a research framework that simultaneously builds on and departs from existing work, helping to expand and strengthen a program of research on the mediation of humanitarianism. This framework highlights the importance of: (a) studying mediated humanitarianism as a multisited dialectical process; (b) moving away from prescriptive normativity to studying how the mediation of humanitarianism is experienced, affected, and negotiated; and (c) “undoing” despair as the motivation and consequent impulse of critique of the mediation of humanitarianism

How art constitutes the human : aesthetics, empathy, and the interesting in autofiction

This chapter examines ‘graphic autofiction’ in Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! (2002) and What It Is (2009) and Phoebe Gloeckner’s A Child’s Life and Other Stories (2000) and The Diary of A Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures (2002), demonstrating how it allows feminist performances that visualize cartoonists’ authentic experiences of sexual and other forms of trauma. The chapter makes a valuable contribution to current debates on autofiction by moving beyond its literary expressions and investigating how the hybrid medium of comics accommodates the genre and how that, in its turn, complicates the representation of trauma. It also proposes that ‘graphic autofiction’ allows the formation of feminist counter-narratives to the silencing of female abuse victims and the latter’s representation beyond victimhood

Virtual bystanders to human rights abuses: a psychosocial analysis

Book synopsis: In mapping out the field of human rights for those studying and researching within both humanities and social science disciplines, the Handbook of Human Rights not only provides a solid foundation for the reader who wants to learn the basic parameters of the field, but also promotes new thinking and frameworks for the study of human rights in the twenty-first century. The Handbook comprises over sixty individual contributions from key figures around the world, which are grouped according to eight key areas of discussion: foundations and critiques; new frameworks for understanding human rights; world religious traditions and human rights; social, economic, group, and collective rights; critical perspectives on human rights organizations, institutions, and practices; law and human rights; narrative and aesthetic dimension of rights; geographies of rights. In its presentation and analysis of the traditional core history and topics, critical perspectives, human rights culture, and current practice, this Handbook proves a valuable resource for all students and researchers with an interest in human rights

A double-edge sword: the role of psychoanalysis in public responses to human rights violations - denial, justifications and passivity

This paper presents data from a series of exploratory qualitative studies investigating ordinary people’s responses to information about human rights violations. The studies analysed how people understand and account for what happens in the gap between knowledge and action and how they justify their own passivity. This paper focuses on what we can learn about the issue of public passivity in response to human rights violations from psychoanalysis and, in specific, through the concept of denial. The paper proposes a psychosocial theorisation of public passivity that takes into account sociocultural as well as intrapsychic factors. It illustrates how psychoanalysis plays a double role when applied to the investigation of public passivity. On the one hand, it enables an appreciation of the dynamic defences activated by the disturbing information of human rights violations; on the other, it can be used to give credence and legitimacy to justifications of passivity and self-distancing. We need to understand and engage with both. The implications of such theorisation for psychodynamic practice are also discussed

Knowing and not knowing: implicatory denial and defence mechanisms in response to human rights abuses

Book synopsis: Psychosocial Imaginaries collects together essays by members of the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, one of the key sites for the development of psychosocial studies in the UK. Psychosocial studies is a new and exciting area of work that challenges the traditions of psychology and sociology from a genuinely transdisciplinary perspective. This book reflects this agenda in its very varied theoretical and empirical strands, producing a newly contextualised and restless body of understanding of how 'psychic' and 'social' processes intertwine