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Polar Opposites (polar + opposite)
Selected AbstractsTwo Bad Kings and Two Bad PresidentsPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009PHILIP ABBOTT One of the rewards for those engaged in presidential studies is the opportunity to rank presidents. Identifying great presidents is often the focus of this pastime. As important, perhaps,and as engaging,is the identification of bad presidents. Is their "badness" the polar opposite of "greatness"? Is badness easier or more difficult to define than greatness? Based on the insights found in Shakespeare's treatment of two bad kings, I identify two kinds of bad presidents and suggest that the relationship between great presidents and bad ones is a complex one that may lead us to revaluate what makes some presidents great. [source] No Shades of Gray: The Binary Discourse of George W. Bush and an Echoing PressJOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2004Kevin Coe Binary communications represent the world as a place of polar opposites. Such conceptions of reality, although not uncommon in Western thought, take on a heightened importance when political leaders employ them in a concerted, strategic discourse in a mass media environment. With this in mind, this research offers a conception of binary discourse and uses this as a foundation to examine (a) the use of binaries by U.S. President George W. Bush in 15 national addresses, from his inauguration in January 2001 to commencement of the Iraq War in March 2003, and (b) the responses of editorials in 20 leading U.S. newspapers to the president's communications. [source] Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs*JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 6 2003Linn Van Dyne ABSTRACT Employees often have ideas, information, and opinions for constructive ways to improve work and work organizations. Sometimes these employees exercise voice and express their ideas, information, and opinions; and other times they engage in silence and withhold their ideas, information, and opinions. On the surface, expressing and withholding behaviours might appear to be polar opposites because silence implies not speaking while voice implies speaking up on important issues and problems in organizations. Challenging this simplistic notion, this paper presents a conceptual framework suggesting that employee silence and voice are best conceptualized as separate, multidimensional constructs. Based on employee motives, we differentiate three types of silence (Acquiescent Silence, Defensive Silence, and ProSocial Silence) and three parallel types of voice (Acquiescent Voice, Defensive Voice, and ProSocial Voice) where withholding important information is not simply the absence of voice. Building on this conceptual framework, we further propose that silence and voice have differential consequences to employees in work organizations. Based on fundamental differences in the overt behavioural cues provided by silence and voice, we present a series of propositions predicting that silence is more ambiguous than voice, observers are more likely to misattribute employee motives for silence than for voice, and misattributions for motives behind silence will lead to more incongruent consequences (both positive and negative) for employees (than for voice). We conclude by discussing implications for future research and for managers. [source] "I fell in love with Carlos the meerkat": Engagement and detachment in human,animal relationsAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 2 2010MATEI CANDEA ABSTRACT Relationship, connection, and engagement have emerged as key values in recent studies of human,animal relations. In this article, I call for a reexamination of the productive aspects of detachment. I trace ethnographically the management of everyday relations between biologists and the Kalahari meerkats they study, and I follow the animals' transformation as subjects of knowledge and engagement when they become the stars of an internationally popular, televised animal soap opera. I argue that treating detachment and engagement as polar opposites is unhelpful both in this ethnographic case and, more broadly, in anthropological discussions of ethics and knowledge making. [human,animal relations, science, media, ethics, engagement, detachment] [source] Transformations in dreaming and characters in the psychoanalytic field,THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 2 2009Antonino Ferro Having reviewed certain similarities and differences between the various psychoanalytic models (historical reconstruction/development of the container and of the mind's metabolic and transformational function; the significance to be attributed to dream-type material; reality gradients of narrations; tolerability of truth/lies as polar opposites; and the form in which characters are understood in a psychoanalytic session), the author uses clinical material to demonstrate his conception of a session as a virtual reality in which the central operation is transformation in dreaming (de-construction, de-concretization, and re-dreaming), accompanied in particular by the development of this attitude in both patient and analyst as an antidote to the operations of transformation in hallucinosis that bear witness to the failure of the functions of meaning generation. The theoretical roots of this model are traced in the concept of the field and its developments as a constantly expanding oneiric holographic field; in the developments of Bion's ideas (waking dream thought and its derivatives, and the patient as signaller of the movements of the field); and in the contributions of narratology (narrative transformations and the transformations of characters and screenplays). Stress is also laid on the transition from a psychoanalysis directed predominantly towards contents to a psychoanalysis that emphasizes the development of the instruments for dreaming, feeling, and thinking. An extensive case history and a session reported in its entirety are presented so as to convey a living impression of the ongoing process, in the consulting room, of the unsaturated co-construction of an emotional reality in the throes of continuous transformation. The author also describes the technical implications of this model in terms of forms of interpretation, the countertransference, reveries, and, in particular, how the analyst listens to the patient's communications. The paper ends with an exploration of the concepts of grasping (in the sense of clinging to the known) and casting (in relation to what is as yet undefined but seeking representation and transformation) as a further oscillation of the minds of the analyst and the patient in addition to those familiar from classical psychoanalysis. [source] Differentiating Components of Sexual Well-Being in Women: Are Sexual Satisfaction and Sexual Distress Independent Constructs?THE JOURNAL OF SEXUAL MEDICINE, Issue 7 2010Kyle R. Stephenson BS ABSTRACT Introduction., Sexual satisfaction and sexual distress are common outcome measures in studies of sexual health and well-being. However, confusion remains as to if and how the two constructs are related. While many researchers have conceptualized satisfaction and distress as polar opposites, with a lack of satisfaction indicating high distress and vice versa, there is a growing movement to view satisfaction and distress as relatively independent factors and measure them accordingly. Aim., The study aimed to assess the level of independence between sexual satisfaction and distress in female clinical and nonclinical samples. Methods., Ninety-nine women (mean age = 25.3) undergoing treatment (traditional sex therapy and/or gingko biloba) for sexual arousal disorder with or without coexistent hypoactive sexual desire disorder and/or orgasmic disorder completed surveys assessing sexual satisfaction, sexual distress, sexual functioning, and relational functioning at pretreatment, mid-treatment, posttreatment, and follow-up. Two hundred twenty sexually healthy women (mean age = 20.25) completed similar surveys at 1-month intervals. Main Outcome Measures., Sexually dysfunctional women completed the Sexual Satisfaction Scale for Women (SSS-W), the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Sexually healthy women completed the SSS-W, the FSFI, the Relationship Assessment Scale, and the Dimensions of Relationship Quality Scale. Results., Sexual satisfaction and distress were generally closely and inversely related; however, distress was more closely related to sexual functioning variables than was satisfaction in the clinical sample, and satisfaction was more closely related to relational variables than was distress in the nonclinical sample. Additionally, satisfaction and distress showed partially independent patterns of change over time, and scales of distress showed a larger change in response to treatment than did scales of satisfaction. Conclusion., Although sexual satisfaction and distress may be closely related, these findings suggest that they are, at least, partially independent constructs. Implications for research on sexual well-being and treatment outcome studies are discussed. Stephenson KR, and Meston CM. Differentiating components of sexual well-being in women: Are sexual satisfaction and sexual distress independent constructs? J Sex Med 2010;7:2458,2468. [source] Silence as Gesture: Rethinking the Nature of Communicative SilencesCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2008Kris Acheson Silence and speech are often defined in relation to each other. In much scholarship, the two are perceived as polar opposites; speech enjoys primacy in this dichotomy, with silence negatively perceived as a lack of speech. As a consequence of this binary thinking, scholars remain unable to study the full range of the meanings and uses of silence in human interactions or even to fully recognize its communicative power. Merleau-Ponty described language as a gesture, made possible by the fact that we are bodies in a physical world. Language does not envelop or clothe thought; ideas materialize as embodied language, whether spoken or written. If silence is, as I argue here, as like speech as it is different, perhaps silence, too, can be a gesture. Rather than simply a background for expressed thought, if we considered silence to be embodied, to be a mating of the phenomenal and existential bodies, how might that affect current misconceptions of silence and subsequent limitations on the study of communicative silences? Résumé Le silence comme geste : Repenser la nature des silences communicationnels Le silence et la parole sont souvent définis en relation l'un avec l'autre. Dans une grande partie de la recherche, les deux phénomènes sont perçus comme étant des pôles opposés. La parole jouit de la primauté dans cette dichotomie, le silence étant perçu négativement comme une absence de parole. Conséquence de cette pensée binaire, les chercheurs demeurent incapables d'étudier toute la complexité des significations et des usages du silence dans les interactions humaines, ni même d'en reconnaître complètement le pouvoir communicationnel. Merleau-Ponty décrivait le langage comme un geste, rendu possible par le fait que nous sommes des corps dans un monde physique. Le langage n'enveloppe ni ne vêt la pensée; les idées se matérialisent comme un langage incarné, qu'il soit parlé ou écrit. Si, tel que je le soumets ici, le silence est aussi semblable à la parole qu'il n'en est différent, peut-être alors le silence peut-il être, lui aussi, un geste. Plutôt qu'un simple arrière-plan pour l'expression de la pensée, si nous considérions le silence comme étant incarné, comme étant un accouplement des corps phénoménaux et existentiels, quelles conséquences cela pourrait-il avoir sur les idées fausses que l'on se fait actuellement du silence et sur les limites subséquentes à l'étude des silences communicationnels? Abstract Stille als Geste. Neue Überlegungen zum Wesen kommunikativer Stille Stille und Rede werden oft in Abhängigkeit voneinander definiert und häufig als Gegensätze wahrgenommen, wobei Rede in dieser Dichotomie Vorrang genießt, während Stille eher negativ als das Fehlen von Rede wahrgenommen wird. Als eine Konsequenz dieses binären Denkens, bleibt es Wissenschaftlern unmöglich, das volle Ausmaß von Bedeutungen und Verwendungen von Stille in menschlicher Interaktion zu untersuchen und deren kommunikative Macht zu verstehen. Merleau-Ponty beschrieb Sprache als eine Geste möglich gemacht durch die Tatsache, dass wir Körper in einer physischen Welt sind. Sprache verhüllt oder bekleidet Gedanken nicht, Ideen materialisieren sich als Sprache, gesprochen oder geschrieben. Wenn Stille, und so argumentiere ich hier, vergleichbar aber auch verschieden von Sprache ist, kann man Stille möglicherweise auch als Geste verstehen. Verständen wir Stille als verkörpert, anstatt einfach nur als einen Hintergrund für ausgedrückte Gedanken, als eine Verbindung zwischen phänomenalen und existentiellen Körpern, wie kann dies dann die aktuelle Misskonzeptualisierungen von Stille beeinflussen und daraus folgend Einschränkungen bei der Untersuchung von kommunikativer Stille aufzeigen? Resumen El Silencio como un Gesto: Repensando la Naturaleza de los Silencios Comunicativos El silencio y el habla son a menudo definidos en relación de uno con otro. En muchos estudios, los 2 son percibidos como polarmente opuestos; el habla disfruta de la primacía en esta dicotomía, mientras que el silencio es percibido negativamente como la falta del habla. Como una consecuencia de este pensamiento binario, los estudiosos permanecen inhabilitados para estudiar el rango completo de los significados y usos del silencio en las interacciones humanas, y para reconocer su poder comunicativo. Merleau-Ponty describió el lenguaje como un gesto, hecho posible por el hecho de que somos cuerpos en un mundo físico. El lenguaje no desarrolla ó viste ese pensamiento; las ideas se materializan como personificados en el lenguaje ya sea hablado ó escrito. Si el silencio es, como yo expongo aquí, como el habla así como es diferente del habla, tal vez el silencio pueda ser un gesto también. En vez de ser simplemente un antecedente del pensamiento expresado, si consideramos al silencio como un ser personificado, como una pareja de los cuerpos fenomenales y existentes, cómo podría eso afectar las concepciones corrientes equivocadas sobre el silencio y sus limitaciones subsecuentes para el estudio de los silencios comunicativos? ZhaiYao Yo yak [source] | ||||||||||