Affectivity and the Social Bond


Book Description

Affectivity and the Social Bond offers a fresh and original perspective on the relationship between affectivity and transcendence in nineteenth and twentieth century French social theory. Engaging in a conceptual analysis of the works of Comte, Durkheim, Bataille and Girard, this book exposes a major transformation brought about by the sociological gaze in understandings of affectivity and its relationship to both sociality and transcendence in nineteenth century social thought: the ambivalence between the transcendence of the social and the immanence of affective experience. Revealing the manner in which questions of violence and economy are intertwined in the sociological analysis of affectivity, Affectivity and the Social Bond reflects upon the problem of controlling affectivity, alongside the political implications and possible dangers of a sociological model which seeks the roots of the social bond first and foremost in the affective realm. A rigorous engagement with the classics of French social theory, their treatment of human affectivity and its relationship to social integration and regulation, this book will appeal not only to sociologists and social theorists, but also to those with interests in social and political philosophy and the history of ideas.




Affective Neuroscience


Book Description

Some investigators have argued that emotions, especially animal emotions, are illusory concepts outside the realm of scientific inquiry. However, with advances in neurobiology and neuroscience, researchers are demonstrating that this position is wrong as they move closer to a lasting understanding of the biology and psychology of emotion. In Affective Neuroscience, Jaak Panksepp provides the most up-to-date information about the brain-operating systems that organize the fundamental emotional tendencies of all mammals. Presenting complex material in a readable manner, the book offers a comprehensive summary of the fundamental neural sources of human and animal feelings, as well as a conceptual framework for studying emotional systems of the brain. Panksepp approaches emotions from the perspective of basic emotion theory but does not fail to address the complex issues raised by constructionist approaches. These issues include relations to human consciousness and the psychiatric implications of this knowledge. The book includes chapters on sleep and arousal, pleasure and fear systems, the sources of rage and anger, and the neural control of sexuality, as well as the more subtle emotions related to maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. Representing a synthetic integration of vast amounts of neurobehavioral knowledge, including relevant neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry, this book will be one of the most important contributions to understanding the biology of emotions since Darwins The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals




The Psychobiology of Affective Development (PLE: Emotion)


Book Description

Originally published in 1984, this was the first volume on this topic to appear in an emerging area of study at the time. The editors were selective in choosing their contributions to the volume to ensure that both the developmental and neuropsychological domains were well represented. One of the major goals was to foster greater contact and cross-fertilization between subdisciplines that they firmly believed should be more intimately connected. The result is this title, which can now be enjoyed in its historical context.




Foundations of Affective Social Learning


Book Description

Written by experts in comparative, developmental, social, cognitive and cultural psychology, this book introduces the novel concept of affective social learning to help explain why what matters to us, matters to us. In the same way that social learning describes how we observe other people's behaviour to learn how to use a particular object, affective social learning describes how we observe other people's emotions to learn how to value a particular object, person or event. As such, affective social learning conceptualises the transmission of value from a given culture to a given person and reveals why the things that are so important to us can be of no consequence at all to others.




Matters of Spirit


Book Description

This book offers a radically new interpretation of the entire philosophy of J. G. Fichte by showing the impact of nineteenth-century psychological techniques and technologies on the formation of his theory of the imagination—the very centerpiece of his philosophical system. By situating Fichte’s philosophy within the context of nineteenth-century German science and culture, the book establishes a new genealogy, one that shows the extent to which German idealism’s transcendental account of the social remains dependent upon the scientific origins of psychoanalysis in the material techniques of Mesmerism. The book makes it clear that the rational, transcendental account of spirit, imagination, and the social has its source in the psychological phenomena of affective rapport. Specifically, the imagination undergoes a double displacement in which it is ultimately subject to external influence, the influence of a material technique, or, in short, a technology.




The Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation


Book Description

This book examines the biological, especially the neural, substrates of affiliation and related social behaviors. Affiliation refers to social behaviors that bring individuals closer together. This includes such associations as attachment, parent-offspring interactions, pair-bonding, and the building of coalitions. Affiliations provide a social matrix within which other behaviors, including reproduction and aggression, may occur. While reproduction and aggression also reduce the distance between individuals, their expression is regulated in part by the positive social fabric of affiliative behavior.Until recently, researchers have paid little attention to the regulatory physiology and neural processes that subserve affiliative behaviors. The integrative approach in this book reflects the constructive interactions between those who study behavior in the context of natural history and evolution and those who study the nervous system.The book contains the partial proceedings of a conference of the same title held in Washington, DC, in 1996. The full proceedings was published as part of the Annals of the York Academy of Sciences.




Positive Neuroscience


Book Description

This volume describes research supported by the John Templeton Foundation's Positive Neuroscience Project, aimed at illuminating the neural mechanisms that promote human flourishing. Topics include social bonds, altruism, creativity, and resilience. The contributors include internationally renowned neuroscientists whose work has shaped and reshaped our understanding of human nature.




Sociological Theory


Book Description







Cultural Politics of Emotion


Book Description

Emotions work to define who we are as well as shape what we do and this is no more powerfully at play than in the world of politics. Ahmed considers how emotions keep us invested in relationships of power, and also shows how this use of emotion could be crucial to areas such as feminist and queer politics. Debates on international terrorism, asylum and migration, as well as reconciliation and reparation, are explored through topical case studies. In this book the difficult issues are confronted head on. The Cultural Politics of Emotion is in dialogue with recent literature on emotions within gender studies, cultural studies, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Throughout the book, Ahmed develops a theory of how emotions work, and the effects they have on our day-to-day lives. New for this editionA substantial 15,000-word Afterword on 'Emotions and Their Objects' which provides an original contribution to the burgeoning field of affect studiesA revised BibliographyUpdated throughout.




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