us versus them

“Man is a social animal” . Social acceptance, social cognitions, extravertisms, are among the many aspects we take into account while our social interactions. So, quite easily we know how important is mixing with people and thus forming groups quite inevitable. Having used the world “group” it might not have been too difficult to conceive it. Although a classic difination, provided by Sherif suggests:

Whenever individuals belonging to one group interact collectively or individually, with another group or its member in terms of their group identifications we have an instance of intergroup behavior.

    Though, defining the meaning of “group” more precisely is problematic. Therefore to avoid large scale social conflicts and other problems relating defining groups in more specific ways, Tajfel(1978) proposed that a group is essentially a set of people who feel that they are a group. Tajfel also proposed that there is continuum of behavior between acting purely in terms of self and purely in terms of group. This means that one can never act totally as a group member, forgetting his/her individuality and vice-versa.

Just like formation of groups is inevitable same is the formation of many groups holding some differences than the others and then interactions between such groups. According to the social schema, during intergroup interactions, social categorization is a very likely cognitive process to happen. Without this process of social categorization, intergroup behavior cannot occur. Central to this is the concept of stereotyping. Stereotypes are practiced to preconceptions that mark out certain objects a s familiar or strange, emphasizing the differences, so that the slightly familiar is seen as very familiar and the somewhat strange as sharply alien. Stereotype ca also be defined as a simplified and relatively fixed image of all members of a culture or group. Their generalizations about people that are based on limited, sometimes inaccurate but often easily available information and are characterized by no or minimal contact with members of the stereotyped groups and on second-hand information rather than first-hand experience.

However, a single statement or attitude about the group of people that does not recognize the complex multi-dimensional nature of individual human beings irrespective of race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender or nationality. Stereotypes can be positive, negative or mixed, but are usually unfair and misleading. In general, they reduce individuals to a rigid, inflexible image.

     Stereotypes matter because they have EFFECTS. Lyons and Kashima (2003) showed that, when accounts are passed from one person to another, the true information is at a risk of not conforming to the stereotyped expectations and hence gradually being dropped. In the same year they also proved that the emphasis on stereotypical information was strongest when the story teller and their audience shared the same stereotypes. Memories also reflect stereotypes (Bellaza and Bower,1981). Fiske concluded that there is a tendency to remember what matches the stereotypical expectations more in complex social settings, where due to some reasons people failed to focus on information which is not in line with the stereotype. What effects does stereotyping have on those who are stereotyped? The effect is more importantly called “stereotyped threat”. Steele (1997) suggested that when an individual is aware that they could be the target of an negative or demeaning stereotype, there performance may be impaired on tasks relevant to that stereotype. Simple focus on stereotyped beliefs about other groups may take matters to prejudice and discrimination.

The flowchart below gives a summary.

Individualsà GROUPà more than one groupà “us” versus “them”à our’s: familiar as very familiar; their’s: somewhat strange as alien (STEREOTYPING)à overestimation of intergroup differencesà PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES BEHIND SCHIZOPHRENIA

Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain, therefore it is likely to parallel disease of other organs for example, myocardial infarctions diabetes, whose courses are affected by PSYCHOSOCIAL stress. Hence, it is mandatory to consider both psychosocial and biological factors affecting schizophrenia.

Sigmund Freud holds the “fixations” responsible for many disorders. Similarly he postulated that schizophrenia resulted from developmental fixations that occurred earlier than those culminating in the development of neuroses. These fixations produce defects in the ego development. Fixations occurs to the time when the ego was not yet or had just began to be established. We know that the ego regulates our superego and id and is the only window to realty, regulates the inner drives, such as sex and aggretion. When ego functioning is impaired, the schizophrenia patients are cut with reality and hence generate some positive symptoms of hallucinations and delusions. Thus, intrapsychic conflict arising from the early fixations and the ego defect, which may have resulted from poor early object relations, fuel the psychotic symptoms (Kaplan and Saddock,2009).

Another psychoanalyst Margerat Mahler, described that there are distortions in the reciprocal relationship between the infant and the mother. The child is unable to separate from and progress beyond the closeness and complete dependence that characterize the mother-child relationship in the oral phase of development. As a result, the person’s identity never becomes secure.

Paul Federn hypothesized that the dysfunctioning of ego allows the hostility and aggretion to distort the mother infant relationship, which leads to eventual personality disorganization and vulnerability to stress. The onset of symptoms during adolescence occur when teenagers need a strong ego to function independently, to separate from the parents, to identify tasks , to control increased internal drives and to cope with intense external stimulation.

Harry Stack Sullivan viewed schizophrenia as a disturbance in interpersonal relatedness. The patients massive anxiety creates a sense of unrelatedness that is transformed into parataxic distortions, which are usually, but not always persecutory. To Sullivan schizophrenia is a adoptive method used to avoid panic terror and disintegration of the sense of self. The source of pathological anxiety results from cumulative experiential traumas during development.

Psychoanalytic theory also postulated that the various symptoms of schizophrenia have symbolic meaning for individual patients. For example, fantasies of the world coming to an end may indicate a perception that a person’s internal world has broken down. Feelings of inferiority are replaced by delusions of grandeur and omnipotence. Hallucinations may be substitutes for a patient’s inability to deal with objective reality and may represent inner wishes or fears. Delusions, like hallucinations are regressive, resitutive attempts to create a new reality or to express hidden fears or impulses.