As the affordances of authorship and reading practices on social media become deeply mediated by algorithmic curation, they encourage closer attention to the author's personality as fundamental to literary production. The Algorithmic Age of Personality: African Literature and Cancel Culture challenges any lingering utopianism in the role of digital media in African cultural productions by exploring how algorithms engender a culture of outrage, conflict, and personality-driven and ego battles that distract from aesthetic and ethical evaluations of literary texts. In Yékú’s careful attention to how contemporary African literary practices are significantly marked by the extractivist and affective logics of social media algorithms, he articulates the current state of debating in the critical universe of African literature and connects this to the phenomenon of “cancel culture.” Rather than a Manichean understanding of cancel culture, Yékú illustrates how the politics of both conservative and liberal polarization shape what can and cannot be said in online commentaries on African literary forms. The outcome is a work that situates postcolonial classics by Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad in online debates on cancel culture and decolonization, while responding to social media discussions on Western literary prizes, ethnicity, and sexuality involving writers like Soyinka, Ngũgĩ, Wainaina, and Adichie.

An instrumental resource for professionals and students working with adolescents. A landmark for MMPI instruments, this volume will serve as a vital contribution to the expanding base of successful MMPI-A applications. The authors' comprehensive approach to each of the sixteen clinically diverse cases constitutes an intrepretive model providing detailed information on the background of each case, profile validity, current level of adjustment, symptoms and traits, diagnostic and treatment recommendations, and outcome. Particular emphasis is placed on the new adolescent-specific scales developed to assess family and school problems, low self-esteem, and substance abuse. Including background information on the development of the MMPI-A, the book is a useful resource for those new to the MMPI-A as well as an essential reference for those who have experience in MMPI interpretation with adolescents. Yossef S. Ben-Porath is associate professor of psychology at Kent State University. Instrumental in the research on and development of the MMPI-A, he has coauthored numerous books on the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A. Daniel L. Davis is an expert in the area of juvenile delinquency and has had an active career in the treatment and rehabilitation of youth in various programs. He currently works at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

A collection of illustrative adolescent case studies to aid clinicians in problem identification, diagnosis, and treatment planning—the only casebook for the MMPI-A-RF

The MMPI-A-RF is linked to current models of psychopathology and personality, and features scales relevant for use with adolescents in a variety of clinical, forensic, and school settings. It mirrors the structure of the MMPI-2-RF, resulting in the most up-to-date, empirically based personality assessment for use with adolescents. Written by the authors of the earlier Case Studies for Interpreting the MMPI-A, this book continues the goal of serving as an authentic and illustrative guide for clinicians in understanding and using the MMPI-A-RF. 

Since the publication of the original Case Studies, much has changed for clinicians who assess and treat adolescents. The interpretive model described in this book demonstrates how the MMPI-A-RF can assist clinicians in assessing youth today by highlighting sixteen cases that broadly represent adolescents evaluated in clinical and forensic practice. In addition, one of the most common uses for the MMPI-A-RF is in the juvenile court setting—a landscape that has also dramatically changed since the publication of the original MMPI-A. Case Studies for Interpreting the MMPI-A-RF focuses on detailed forensic issues, including legal backgrounds, case law, and assessment methods specific to use of the MMPI-A-RF in juvenile court and related settings. 

Case Studies for Interpreting the MMPI-A-RF will assist clinicians in understanding MMPI-A-RF interpretation, while also being a valuable teaching tool for courses in assessment.

The need and desire for the integral development of the person in his or her somatic, psychological and spiritual dimensions is growing faster than it can be answered. Ancient and classical wisdom gives us much to ponder and apply, but there is still much more to be given human life in the joy and integrity offered by Christianity. When one speaks of the meaningfulness and fruitfulness of life, there is an apostolic quality that makes of the beauty of a single individual a cause of fruitfulness in others as well. Yet many who are entrusted with the formation and care of souls have little at their disposal to foster or explain this.

The present book aims to respond to this need by addressing the consonance and individuality in human nature, and the ways in which ordering in personality and psychology are
not inhibiting, but potentially liberating and influential. Francisco Insa draws from his medical and theological background, which includes both clinical and pastoral experience, to address all those responsible for the formation of others––including parents, teachers, priests, spiritual directors––and enables them to confront their roles as formators with greater insight and confidence. Insa's guidance through the human personality and its various expressions, the education of the character, growth in maturity, the particularity of each stage of the life cycle, sexuality and celibacy, chastity in the context of post-modern life, and mental illnesses is a landmark presentation of scientific rigor matched with practical application. As often as one says, "My situation is unique,"; the author here responds: "Yes, but special even more than you can express"; Insa is forthright about what can never be lost in human beings, but only recovered when the head and heart are aligned and formed properly.

For as much as this book may help the reader understand himself, it will also render him better understood by others. The Christian approach to the formation of affectivity, as Insa shows, is indispensable to deep and enduring human development, and it is often the only way to identify and mediate interior dissonance and confusion.

This volume reports on a study of 850 pairs of twins who were tested to determine the influence of heredity and environment on individual differences in personality, ability, and interests. It presents the background, research design, and procedures of the study, a complete tabulation of the test results, and the authors’ extensive analysis of their findings. Based on one of the largest studies of twin behavior conducted in the twentieth century, the book challenges a number of traditional beliefs about genetic and environmental contributions to personality development.

The subjects were chosen from participants in the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test of 1962 and were mailed a battery of personality and interest questionnaires. In addition, parents of the twins were sent questionnaires asking about the twins’ early experiences. A similar sample of nontwin students who had taken the merit exam provided a comparison group. The questions investigated included how twins are similar to or different from nontwins, how identical twins are similar to or different from fraternal twins, how the personalities and interests of twins reflect genetic factors, how the personalities and interests of twins reflect early environmental factors, and what implications these questions have for the general issue of how heredity and environment influence the development of psychological characteristics. In attempting to answer these questions, the authors shed light on the importance of both genes and environment and form the basis for different approaches in behavior genetic research.

This work provides a clear guide to Karol Wojtyla's principal philosophical work, Person and Act, rigorously analyzing the meaning that the author intended in his exposition. An important feature of the work is that the authors rely on the original Polish text, Osoba i czyn, as well as the best translations into Italian and Spanish, rather than on a flawed and sometimes misleading English edition of the work.

This manual provides a step-by-step procedure, tested in controlled research and illustrated with case examples, for using the MMPI-2 as a therapeutic intervention. Finn covers all stages of the MMPI-2 assessment, from the initial interview, through the scoring and interpretation of the test, and culminating in the feedback session. The goal of this approach is to gather accurate information about clients with the MMPI-2 and then to use this information to help clients understand themselves and make positive changes in their lives.Finn's appraoch advocates the dynamic involvement of client and assessor both before and after testing. This appraoch to assessment is very timely given the demands that managed care is making for demonstration of treatment efficacy.Stephen Finn is Director of the Center for Therapeutic Assessment in Austin, Texas.

Israel's founders sought to create a nation of new Jews who would never again go meekly to the death camps. Yet Israel's strength has become synonymous with an oppression of the Palestinians that provokes anger throughout the Muslim world and beyond. How are Israelis able to see themselves as victims while victimizing others? What does Israeli Jewish identity mean today?

Arthur Neslen explores the dynamics, distortions and incredible diversity of Israeli society. From the mouths of soldiers, settlers, sex workers and the victims of suicide attacks, Occupied Minds is the story of a national psyche that has become scarred by mental security barriers, emotional checkpoints and displaced outposts of self-righteousness and aggression.

From vignettes to in-depth interviews, more than fifty Israelis offer their accounts. What they reveal is in turn powerful, haunting, subtle and disturbing. Illustrated throughout with photographs, this unique book offers an unrivalled insight into Israeli consciousness, private and public.

It charts the evolution of a communal self-image based on cultural and religious values towards one formed around a single militaristic imperative: national security.

The Catholic University of America Press is honored to announce the publication of the first volume of the critical English edition of The Collected Works of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II. In conjunction with an international editorial board, the English Critical Edition will comprise 20 volumes, covering all of his writings and correspondence both in the years before and during his papacy. What makes this collection so important is that access to his writings have been a significant challenge. Except for official papal addresses and documents preserved and disseminated by the Vatican, his works have been scattered and limited, or in need of a new translation. Finally, English-language audiences have faced the challenge, even in the case of published texts, of working across multiple languages and translations and of dealing with textual idiosyncrasies. The inaugural volume of this collection is Person and Act, together with related essays, which is in many respects constitutes Karol Wojtyła’s most profound and well-known philosophical work. Originally published in 1969 as Osoba I czyn, this work of metaphysics and philosophy is widely influential even though it is highly challenging intellectually and has heretofore posed difficulties for translators.

This book presents penetrating observations by six authorities on the personality development of children for the enlightenment of parents, teachers, and others who have a vital interest in children.

In the first paper, the late Harold E. Jones, a professor of psychology and the director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, examines the development of personality over a long period of time. He discusses the child-rearing practices used with a number of babies, then follows through with observations made several years later to see the effects of these practices.

In another paper, John E. Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota and the former director of the Institute of Child Development and Welfare there, supports the theory that valid predictions of future personality adjustment can be made through an assessment of the present status of an individual.

Anderson’s findings are based on the results of tests administered to children of Nobles County, Minnesota, during the period 1950–1957, and on teacher-community-pupil ratings of these children.

Still other papers offer a variety of ideas. Dr. Milton J. E. Senn, Sterling Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and the director of the Child Study Center at Yale University, suggests that there be greater harmony and more exchange of thought among people working toward a proper understanding of human nature. To a degree this entire book follows his suggestion.

Among several noteworthy observations made by Stanford University Professor of Psychology Robert R. Sears is the point that the development of conscience depends largely upon whether a child is loved or rejected by his or her parents.

John W. M. Whiting, professor of education and director of the Laboratory for Human Development at Harvard University, discusses, among other problems, the question of why children like to play grown-up roles and what happens when they are not permitted to do so. Orville Brim, a sociologist at the Russell Sage Foundation of New York City, explains personality in terms of demands, holding that one’s personality changes from situation to situation and from person to person.

“I am the Chosen One!” With this exclamation Donald Trump crowns the national exceptionalism his base upholds with a claim of personal exceptionalism. He leaves no doubt as to the emotional note: “I am your vengeance!” He personifies reaction for the masses. Except, in today’s microsegmented social media environment the “masses” no longer exist. Fascism’s cultural conditions have shifted. In The Personality of Power, Brian Massumi retheorizes the conditions of contemporary fascism through the prism of Trump’s persona. Older theories based on identification of the masses with a charismatic leader no longer hold. Rather, an affective regime of reaction agitates bodies and orients lives at the molecular level. Massumi examines this agitation in relation to race, gender, personhood, and conspiracy thinking. The Personality of Power is a political treatise on fascism and its precursor movements, coupled with a philosophical inquiry into becoming reactionary as a collective process. Massumi calls the very concept of the person into question, asking what collective personhood means concretely. Nothing less than an alternative political logic is needed, turned to the task of thinking collective individuation.

In his quest to understand and describe the behavior of the Mexican, the distinguished Mexican psychologist R. Díaz-Guerrero combines a strong theoretical interest in the relationship of culture to personality with a pragmatic concern for methodology. This collection of essays is rooted both in studies of Mexican psychology as an independent phenomenon and in cross-cultural comparisons of Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Anglo-Americans.

Dr. Díaz-Guerrero discusses Mexican attitudes toward sex roles and the family, motivations of the Mexican worker, and other topics. He compares Mexican and American concepts of respect and analyzes the relation between neurosis and the Mexican family structure. He attempts to determine the degree of mental, personal, and social health of urban Mexicans. The importance of basic sociocultural premises, such as "The mother is the dearest person in existence," and "The stricter the parents are, the better the children turn out," is explored. In one essay, Díaz-Guerrero notes the differences in typical reactions to stress in Mexico and the United States, concluding that the American pattern involves active response to stress, whereas the Mexican response tends to be more passive.

Psychology of the Mexican deals with a variety of historical, psychological, biological, social, economic, and anthropological variables, attempting to treat them in a scientific way through the use of carefully constructed questionnaires, with detailed statistical analyses of the results. On the basis of data obtained in this way, the author formulates broad conceptual schemes with immediate application to the understanding of human behavior in real situations. He is particularly intrigued by the way the individual relates to the significant people in his environment. For the Mexican, he says, such interpersonal relationships are the most important part of life; in contrast to the American insistence on liberty and equality, Mexican culture emphasizes affiliation and love.

The Science of Character makes a bold new claim for the power of the literary by showing how Victorian novelists used fiction to theorize how character forms.
 
In 1843, the Victorian philosopher John Stuart Mill called for the establishment of a new science, “the science of the formation of character.” Although Mill’s proposal failed as scientific practice, S. Pearl Brilmyer maintains that it found its true home in realist fiction of the period, which employed the literary figure of character to investigate the nature of embodied experience. Bringing to life Mill’s unrealized dream of a science of character, novelists such as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Olive Schreiner turned to narrative to explore how traits and behaviors in organisms emerge and develop, and how aesthetic features—shapes, colors, and gestures—come to take on cultural meaning through certain categories, such as race and sex. Engaged with materialist science and philosophy, these authors transformed character from the liberal notion of the inner truth of an individual into a materially determined figuration produced through shifts in the boundaries between the body’s inside and outside. In their hands, Brilmyer argues, literature became a science, not in the sense that its claims were falsifiable or even systematically articulated, but in its commitment to uncovering, through a fictional staging of realistic events, the laws governing physical and affective life. The Science of Character redraws late Victorian literary history to show how women and feminist novelists pushed realism to its aesthetic and philosophical limits in the crucial span between 1870 and 1920.

An accessible guide to the work of American psychologist and affect theorist Silvan Tomkins

 

The brilliant and complex theories of psychologist Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) have inspired the turn to affect in the humanities, social sciences, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, these theories are not well understood. A Silvan Tomkins Handbook makes his theories portable across a range of interdisciplinary contexts and accessible to a wide variety of contemporary scholars and students of affect. 

A Silvan Tomkins Handbook provides readers with a clear outline of Tomkins’s affect theory as he developed it in his four-volume masterwork Affect Imagery Consciousness. It shows how his key terms and conceptual innovations can be used to build robust frameworks for theorizing affect and emotion. In addition to clarifying his affect theory, the Handbook emphasizes Tomkins’s other significant contributions, from his broad theories of imagery and consciousness to more focused concepts of scenes and scripts. With their extensive experience engaging and teaching Tomkins’s work, Adam J. Frank and Elizabeth A. Wilson provide a user-friendly guide for readers who want to know more about the foundations of affect studies.