Shadow (psychology)

About: Shadow (psychology) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 8396 publications have been published within this topic receiving 117158 citations.

Illegal activities, but still value added ones (?): size, causes, and measurement of the shadow economies all over the world* )

Abstract: Using various methods estimates about the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition and OECD countries are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (in percent of GDP) over 1989-93 in developing countries is 39%, in transition countries 23% and in OECD countries 12%. An increasing burden of taxation and social security contributions combined with rising state regulatory activities are the driving forces for the growth and size of the shadow economy. According to some findings, a growing shadow economy has a negative impact on official GDP growth, however, this result is not robust, other studies show the opposite effect.

Paradigms of American Politics: Beyond the One, the Two, and the Many

Abstract: "In American social studies," Louis Hartz observed eighteen years ago, "we still live in the shadow of the Progressive era."1 The book in which he wrote these words played a major and, in some respects, decisive role in dissipating that shadow and moving the study of American society into the bright, warm, soothing sunlight of the consensus era. For a decade thereafter, the dominant image of American society among scholars and intellectuals was that formulated and expressed in the works of Boorstin, Hofstadter, Parsons, Potter, Bell, Lipset, Hartz himself, and many others. The consensus theory was the product of a new scholarly concern with what was "different" about American society and, indeed, "American civilization." The consensus theory marked not only a rejection of the earlier progressive paradigm of American politics. It also differed from, although it was not entirely incompatible with, the pluralistic model which, from the early decades of the century, had been the most popular paradigmatic child of the American political science profession. The progressive theory stressed class conflict; the pluralist model stressed the competition among a multi-

The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism

Abstract: Though often thought of as rivals, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Amiri Baraka shared a range of interests, especially a passion for music. Jazz, in particular, was a decisive influence on their thinking, and, as "The Shadow and the Act" reveals, they drew on their insights into the creative process of improvisation to analyze race and politics in the civil rights era. In this inspired study Walton M. Muyumba situates these thinkers as a jazz trio, demonstrating how Ellison, Baraka, and Baldwin's individual works form a series of calls and responses with each other. Muyumba connects their writings on jazz to the philosophical tradition of pragmatism, particularly its support for more freedom for individuals and more democratic societies. He examines the way they responded to and elaborated on that lineage, showing how they significantly broadened it by addressing the African American experience, especially its aesthetics. Ultimately, Muyumba contends, the trio enacted pragmatist principles by effectively communicating the social and political benefits of African Americans fully entering society, thereby compelling America to move closer to its democratic ideals.

Community, society, and the individual

Abstract: "Community" is a good warm word frequently invoked by citizens, social workers, and politicians. There is hardly any shadow to it (Williams 1976). The word "society," by contrast, is more ambivalent. On the one hand, "society" invokes something large and impersonal; on the other hand, something elitist and exclusive, as in the expression "high society" or, closer to home, the American Geographical Society. The word "individual" is often bracketed with society, but even more than society, the individual came under suspicion in the last third of the twentieth century. Not too long ago the individual was the pride of Western civilization, and individualism was a concept and a value that distinguished the West from other civilizations. Now "individual" and "individualism" seem to connote largely selfishness. In this article I plead for restoration of balance and esteem among the three terms, for it seems to me that, absent balance and esteem, we have a stunted and distorted view of the possibilities of human welf are, happiness, and fulfillment. Because I attempt to correct an imbalance, my treatment of the three terms cannot be evenhanded. Rather than raising my voice to add more praise for community, I draw attention to some of its defects. As for society and the individual, or individualism, rather than noting once more their defects, I draw attention to certain values that have been put in the shade by the glow of community's reputation. COMMUNITY, COMMUNICATION, AND INDIVIDUAL UNIQUENESS Community is considered good because its members cooperate; they help one another. Cooperation presupposes effective communication, which is said to be another characteristic of community, distinguishing it from society, whose members -- often strangers to one another--either do not communicate or do so with less success. If successful communication is the ideal, however, the human world is not the place to look for it, or even the world of plants and animals, but rather the world of physical objects, says Alfred North Whitehead. Atoms and molecules, planets and the sun, stars in star clusters understand one another, so to speak, perfectly. No question there of messages sent, only to be misinterpreted or subverted (Lowe 1990). The higher the level of complexity in organisms, the more difficult it is for them to achieve a community of perfect communication. In sending and receiving unambiguous messages, plants are less successful than minerals, animals are less successful than plants, and human beings are the least successful of all. The problem with human beings lies in their individuality. By individuality I have in mind both physical character and inner reality--the existence of a world within each being. Inorganic objects may differ greatly in size, shape, and chemical makeup, but they have no inner worlds of consciousness to further differentiate them. Do plants have inner worlds? Although scientists will surely say "No," I can imagine the philosopher-scientist Whitehead averring that "No" is too absolute and that the better answer is "Yes," plants have inner worlds; they are, however, so faint as to approach asymptotically zero. What is not in doubt is that animals feel and have inner worlds constituted by experience--and so, of course, do human beings. A human individual is unique. Every time the senses of a human group are measured in regard to range and sensitivity they are found to differ. People deemed normally sighted may nevertheless differ significantly in spread of peripheral vision, sharpness of focus, sensitivity to color and to type of color. In hearing, so-called normal people diverge notably from one another in appreciation of sounds of varying frequency, such that not only are certain musical notes accessible to one person and not to another but words and phrases in conversation are quickly grasped by one and not by another. …