psychology 
-
SOURCE: PsyPost
3/30/2022
Ignorance of American Political History Correlates to Support for Christian Nationalism
Survey research suggests that respondents who support the idea of a Christian America are not ignorant or unintelligent, but motivated to actively affirm statements about government and history that align with their theological precepts.
-
SOURCE: National Education Association
3/20/2022
The Racist Beginnings of Standardized Testing
Standardized testing originated when public schooling was expanding and eugenicists were arguing that many immigrant and nonwhite groups were not capable of educational achievement. Tests were developed to sustain this viewpoint.
-
SOURCE: Out In Jersey
10/10/2021
LGBTQ Documentary “Cured” Debuts on PBS’ Independent Lens
A new documentary revisits the period before the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973, and psychiatry endorsed extreme measures to "cure" same-sex attraction.
-
SOURCE: Public Books
9/14/2021
The Melting of the American Mind: Internet Pop Psychology and the Authoritarian Personality
by Maya Vinokour
The internet and social media have worked to normalize and validate authoritarian and illiberal worldviews, making the mindset that baffled thinkers like Theodor Adorno in 1947 commonplace today.
-
9/19/2021
Psychologically Speaking, Who Were the Heads of the Chinese Communist Party?
by David Shambaugh
Sinologist David Shambaugh's new book examines the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic's role in the world through a psychological history of the CCP's leaders. Excerpted here, he offers a schematic overview of the work.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
4/26/2021
The Tyranny of the Female-Orgasm Industrial Complex
The writer's personal experiences, in light of a historical review of ideas about female sexuality, suggests that more knowledge has reinforced the social control of women by making pleasure obligatory rather than prohibited (Note: contains frank, explicit and extensive discussions of sexual activity).
-
SOURCE: The New Republic
2/16/2021
Can Historians Be Traumatized by History? (Content Warning)
by James Robins
"If the historian—the very person supposed to process the past on behalf of everyone else—struggles with trauma, then it is little surprise that societies as a whole struggle to face the violence of how they were formed and how they prevailed."
-
12/20/2020
The Psychology of Election Denial
by Robert Brent Toplin
The Republican response to the election results is a lesson in the mental mechanics of cognitive dissonance.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
12/14/2020
How Civilization Broke Our Brains
The anthropologist James Suzman's book evaluates the ravages of modern capitalist civilization – in particular, the institution of work – on individual and collective psychology.
-
SOURCE: TIME
11/12/2020
What We Can Learn About Nazi Psychology From the Wives of Hitler’s Top Officials
A new book, excerpted here, assess everyday life under Nazism by attention to the lives of the wives of leading Nazis.
-
6/28/2020
Those We Abuse, We Loathe
by J. Chester Johnson
Until white Americans reckon with the significance of white supremacy in America, they will deflect a sense of responsibility by laying blame for black suffering on black Americans themselves.
-
SOURCE: Ted.com
4/25/2020
The Dark History of IQ Tests (Video)
by Stefan Dombrowski
Since 1905, IQ testing has been put to constructive and highly destructive uses, as this Ted video explains.
-
SOURCE: The New Yorker
3/30/2020
The History of Loneliness
by Jill Lepore
Until a century or so ago, almost no one lived alone; now many endure shutdowns and lockdowns on their own. How did modern life get so lonely?
-
3/31/19
The Psychotherapy of Marcus Aurelius
by Donald Robertson
Did one of Rome’s wisest and most revered emperors benefit from an ancient precursor of cognitive psychotherapy?
-
11-10-17
The Troubled Genius of Robert Lowell
by Robin Lindley
An interview with clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison on her groundbreaking study of art and illness.
-
SOURCE: S-USIH (United States Intellectual History)
3-9-17
Naomi Weisstein’s Contribution to Psychology, Science, and Women’s Liberation
by Jesse Lemisch
A historian’s take (who happens to be her husband.)
-
2-1-15
The Complex History of Pain: An Interview with Joanna Bourke
by Robin Lindley
In her groundbreaking new book "The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers," renowned British historian Joanna Bourke explores how the understanding of the human sensation of pain has evolved over the past three centuries in the English-speaking world.
-
SOURCE: Aeon
10-7-14
The psychology of torture (The Holocaust is the event that shaped the Milgram experiment)
by Malcolm Harris
The Milgram experiments showed that anybody could be capable of torture when obeying an authority. Are they still valid?
-
11-11-13
History Gets Into Bed with Psychology, and It’s a Happy Match
by Carol Tavris
History gives us the data of our march of folly. Cognitive science shows why.
-
SOURCE: The Atlantic
7-18-13
Louis René Beres: What Does It Mean to Kill for a Cause?
Louis René Beres is a professor of political science at Purdue University and the author of multiple books.Before any country can fashion an effective counter-terrorism policy, it needs a clear and purposeful understanding of "the enemy." For the United States, especially after discovering so-many behavioral contradictions in the Boston Marathon bombers, an underlying task must be to look more closely and explicitly at issues of normalcy. On the cover of yesterday's Rolling Stone, for instance (which was the source of widespread outcry) Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is both "glamorously" posed and called a "monster."Is it correct to assume that all or most of this country's terrorist foes are "abnormal"? Or does such a position ultimately hinder our urgent national security efforts? Would such an assumption represent little more than a ritualized political obligation -- a purely self-serving and ideologically obligatory policy stance -- or might it still be the considered outcome of rock solid and objective psychological science?
News
- The Enduring Appeal of the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" – the Longest Running Interview Show
- White Conservative Parents Got an Educator Fired, then Chased Her to Her Next Job
- Teaching Black History in Virginia Just Got Tougher
- If Ending Roe Isn't Enough, SCOTUS May Blow Up the Regulatory State
- "All the President's Men": From Misguided Buddy Flick to Iconic Political Thriller
- Belew to Maddow: Fascist Groups are "Nationwide Paramilitary Army"
- Far Right Extremism, Paramilitarization, and Misogyny – Statement of Alexandra Stern to the January 6 Committee
- Northwestern Prof and Evanston HS Teachers Engage Illinois Black History
- Jamie Martin: The Rotten Roots of the IMF and World Bank
- Review: Gary Gerstle Argues the Pandemic Killed the Neoliberal Era (But Democrats Don't Know It Yet)