Theory & Psychology

Although the term `human rights' is traditionally taken to refer to fundamental rights enshrined in formal documents, certain basic `normative rights', such as turn-taking, are central to everyday social life. This paper moves toward a cultural theory of rights, proposing that certain fundamental relations, referred to as `primitive social relations', are inherent in human social life and relative to the local political orientation can appear as rights or duties. Second, normative rights/duties are maintained through evolutionary developed social skills that are integral to local cultures. Modernization has been associated with a nullification or `side-stepping' of evolutionary developed defense mechanisms protecting normative rights. Third, legislated rights/duties are a recent arrival in human cultural evolution, and they arose out of the new social relations inherent to large and complex Modern societies.

In this article I examine one of the thorniest aspects of the relationship between feminism and postmodernism, in order to see what a discursive analytic approach can contribute to this important debate. The problem I refer to concerns the threat that the postmodern turn-despite its benefits-is said to pose for a politically committed feminism. I begin with a brief recapping of the postmodernist challenge to the tenets of social science. I then advance a two-part argument promoting discourse analysis for feminist scholars who seek to benefit from postmodernism's respect for difference and inclusivity, yet refuse to give up a critical perspective. The first part of the argument deals with the charge that the postmodern turn disables critical inquiry; the second with the related debate over the need for `generalizing' or `totalizing' concepts (e.g. the concept `women') in the service of a feminist politics. I argue that postmodernist scholars' wide-spread tendency to discuss language outside its context of use has hobbled their ability to respond to this serious challenge, and I suggest that a closer look at routine talk can help feminists reframe these debates about politicality in helpful ways.

The article addresses the current status of Piaget's theory as a perspective on the nature of the human intellect and its development. As a framework for discussion, we adopt Lakatos's methodology of research programs, which has been used by several authors to debate the role of Piaget's and other perspectives on cognitive development. The position we advocate is that, in recent years, research in cognitive development has undergone a profound change of perspective, in the course of which the basic ontological commitments of the Piagetian approach have been challenged and undermined. We argue that Piaget's fundamental assumptions of overarching structures and the process of equilibration have been superseded by a new perspective represented by a synthesis of domain-specific and domain-general processes, which has become the dominant impetus in the field.

A functional theory of human handedness is introduced based on early childhood experiences and the neural plasticity of the brain. It assumes that very different factors may be involved in the development of an individual left-handedness. Imitation and social learning are major factors in the formation of both right- and left-handedness in normal early childhood development. However, the frequently claimed relation between left-handedness and pathology as well as exceptional giftedness can only be understood by taking into account the function or meaning of left-handedness for personality development. The functional approach conceives left-handedness as a ubiquitous symbolic aid for coping creatively with conflict in early childhood. A childrearing style that clashes with the child's body-mind needs can lead the socioculturally less favored left hand to serve as a symbolic frame of reference for a meaning-making action repertoire that is fundamental in protecting and stabilizing the childhood self and personality development. Suggestions are derived regarding brain lateralization and handedness and for the diagnosis of early childhood disorders.

This article discusses some of the issues involved in writing a historiography of histories of psychological thought, using as an example the development of my own thinking while writing a history of behaviorism. Taking the approaches of narrative historians as a starting point, I ask if such approaches can be applied to the writing of psychology's history, concluding that narrative approaches are congruent only with the analysis of particular episodes in psychology's history, while the narrative mode itself entails grave conceptual difficulties. Histories of schools of psychological thought require the methods of historians of ideas. Following Hayden White, I maintain that the writing of large-scale intellectual history demands a prior act of imaginative structuring, so that any attempts to deal with the crucial notions of causation or agency must be mediated via an understanding of the structure of that act.

The recent fourth edition of the American Psychological Association Publication Manual emphasized that p values are not acceptable indices of effect and `encouraged' effect-size reporting. However, empirical studies of reporting practices of diverse journals unequivocally indicate that this new encouragement has to date been ineffective. Here two additional multi-year studies of APA journals are reported. Additionally, all 50 APA editorials that have been published since 1990 were reviewed to determine how many editors with approval have articulated policies more forceful than the APA Publication Manual's vague and seemingly self-canceling encouragement. It is suggested that changes in editorial policies will be required before improved reporting will become routine.