Governed By Affect

Hot Cognition and the End of Cold War Psychology

Michael Pettit (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

376 Seiten

2024
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-762185-1 (ISBN)

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Governed by Affect offers a new history of psychology's contradictory and contested public life in the United States and beyond since World War II, with a special emphasis on a series of transformations which have occurred since the 1970s. For both policymakers and ordinary people, the discipline of psychology has come to furnish a seemingly inexhaustible array of tools and concepts for making individuals healthier, wealthier, and happier. At the heart of this psychologized neo-liberalism is the notion that attention or the will exists as a scarce resource in a distracted and tempting world. Breaking with the austere and deliberative rationality of Cold War cognitive science, the new psychology depicts individuals as beholden to their unbridled passions and wants. At the same time as this unprecedented cultural influence, psychologists' expertise came under greater scrutiny than ever before, with the discipline finding itself mired in a pair of moral and epistemological crises which threaten to overturn the field's self-image as an objective science and a helping profession.

The book traces a series of key transformations: a switch from psychology identifying as a social science to a health science; the greater engagement of psychological scientists in the realms of self-help and public policy; and the overshadowing of cognitive science by theories of affect. These three transformations--in psychology's political economy, in its public engagement, and in its theories of the self--constitute distinct but interconnected areas of analysis for constructing a new history of the psychological society. Such a perspective offers a critical genealogy of the stakes and public face of psychology at a time when the provision of mental health services and the use of behavioral interventions to improve both personal and social well-being are acute matters of concern.

Michael Pettit received his PhD in history from the University of Toronto. He is currently a professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto, affiliated with their Historical, Theoretical, and Critical Studies of Psychology graduate area.

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: A New Look for Psychology: The Antifascist Roots of a New Discipline
Chapter 2: Rational Living and Straight Thinking: Therapeutic Cultures
and the Promise of Liberty
Chapter 3: The Tragedy of American Psychology: Racial Justice and
Professionalism on the Expanding Frontier of Mental Health
Chapter 4: Vigilant Minds, Thoughtless Brains: Warfare, Welfare, and the
Remaking of Cognition
Chapter 5: Why Linda was not a Feminist: Expertise, Activism,
and the Crisis of Confidence
Chapter 6: Rethinking the Politics of Self-Esteem
Chapter 7: How Faces Became Special: Perceiving Others in a Digital Age
Chapter 8: The Coming Crisis of Affective Science
Conclusion

Erscheinungsdatum	25.07.2024
Reihe/Serie	New Histories of Psychology
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 221 mm
Gewicht	680 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Klinische Psychologie
ISBN-10	0-19-762185-6 / 0197621856
ISBN-13	978-0-19-762185-1 / 9780197621851
Zustand	Neuware