From: "feb7th71" <target@batstar.net>

To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com

Date: Fri, May 28, 2010 1:51 pm PDT

Subject: [psysr-disc] Re: review of empathy study and generational differences

 

Hi

This report is a classic "conventional psychology" study of phenomenology with unacknowledged social consequences, one where ideation/denial supplants existential truth and social implication.

"Social learning theory" may be incurred here, and we may even read in here the rationales for the "psychology of terrorism" approach that befits today's social purposes of national security and APA. What we see here is an adjustment pattern of students in the context of an altering political dynamic. Anti-communism fed one generation, while anti-terrorism feeds this one.

Good psychology would accrue the role of imagination in personality formation, and would have us look at how the imagination shifts. Here we are talking about "attitude" adjustment. What ML King Jr. called "creative maladjustment" is not engaged in this "social learning" type of approach.

Pqr wrote:

 Interesting report on a review of 72 studies of empathy and generational differences. The title is simply going to[o] far, and buried in the article is the statement that other studies have found "mixed results". But such differences, if real, would have important implications for social responsibility. The researchers speculate that the differences they found may be due to media and the use of social media.

And when are we going to get past this "too far" and work to extend "perception" to the social responsibility upgrade that flows from the application of imagination?

Last fall I argued down the Pres. of my community college – ultimately, he blinked and sought other employment. That shows his "empathy deficiency" and it also shows how the people [now at] the college give their all for empathy, from generation to generation. "Social responsibility" relates to the relations of "lived experience" not to calculations of self-interest, "yuppie" or today's accommodation by people living in "teaparty times."

Specifically, today's students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than their elders did.

"Measure of empathy" [goes to] a mechanical Cartesian way of engaging reality.

Compared with college students of the late 1970s, current students are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective," and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

In the late 70s, people were hard-hearted about the fact of that "mental patients" are behavioral objects. Robert Okin, [then] Commissioner for Mental Health for Massachusetts, challenged the Mental Patients Liberation Front advocacy for "informed consent for psych meds" on such a basis. Later he "woke up" and realized that he had done wrong, due to the "clinical gaze" which infests the ideation of psychiatry and clinical practice generally. Now after 20 years at U.C.S.F. he practices socially responsibility and advocates [for] "the life project" (the role of 'imagination') and against the "clinical gaze" in treatment paradigms today. Today Bryant Welch has brought forward the 'gaslighting' analytic and more students generally are – as I observe, as an instructor and activist – troubled about the "behavioral object" scenario the "yuppie" generation mainly took for granted.

In 1976 Barbara Lee abandoned [her] community mental health advocacy for 'dignity' – that Afro-Americans in Berkeley/Oakland are entitled to such advocacy in a community treatment setting. She took her MSW, made a "political choice" and now is head of the Congressional Black Caucus. She did "what was right" [at the time] but today circumstances are expanding. Isn't it time today for a new look [at what is possible]?

Konrath's colleague graduate student Edward O'Brien added, "It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others."

The psychology of terrorism, presented as an 'attitude' based on real-politik.

The role of media

A popular excuse, as the impact of media which is in denial of the "behavioral object" mantra of today's clinical gaze habituated. In an earlier approach this was described as a "characterological restructuring" issue; today it devolves on social responsibility to engage the 'clinical gaze' problematic.

I am in deep pain, because of the untimely passing of my friend Sue Poole. I've had problems with the political imperative devolving from the Lee and Dellums national advocacy bypassing my personal work space; her problems were with James Clyburn now the majority whip for the U.S. House of Representatives. We need to get past that "clinical gaze" dominated practicum and change the way we engage in social relations.

 

Andrew Phelps

Berkeley, CA