Psychological Route to War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Psychological Route to War - Essay Example The act of war is a decision with the ultimate consequence. With such magnitude that comes with the declaration of war, it becomes imperative to understand the political and historical context that comes with such a decision. "The constitution makes the President Commander in chief of the armed forces but requires that Congress appropriate all money for the military. The president appoints ambassadors, but the Senate must confirm them. The president can sign treaties, but they have no meaning unless the Senate, by a two-thirds vote, ratifies them. Congress must 'declare' war, but the United States has often gone to war without any formal declaration. The reason is simple: America backs its fighting forces, and when they are put in harm's way, Congress pays their bills," (Wilson p.348). With such insurmountable risks at hand, the psychological reasoning behind resorting to a declaration of war to resolve conflict is an imperative idea to assess and analyze. To have one person be given the Godly role of placing people in a perilous situation, the psychology of what leads them there is tantalizing to contemplate. Humans by nature find themselves at one point in their lives being in the position of having to make a decision that has ramifications of monumental proportion. Psychology Today writes that, "War is probably the second most popular activity with the human race," says psychologist Lawrence LeShan, Ph.D., author of the recently published book, The Psychology of War (Helios Press, 2002). "Making love," he concedes, "is the first." In his book, LeShan argues that war's popularity stems from its unique ability to resolve two major psychological needs. It fulfills our sense of independence by assigning it a purpose, and it fulfills our need for community by establishing boundaries between 'us' and 'them,'" Adding that, "We say we love peace, but it doesn't actually excite us," says LeShan. "Even pacifists talk more about the horrors of war than the glories of peace." Battle generates perceptions so attractive that they can shift people from a rational perspective to one of "war mode," the idealized perception of crusading against evil. But as LeShan notes, After it's all over, you might have solved one problem, but you won't have solved all of the m," (Allen p.1). Humans, as a sign of their nature, can find themselves letting their subconscious desires filter into the decision making capabilities of their logical mindset on the outside. It is those unspoken desires which can lead the person into the most dangerous situations, with the direst of conclusions, or lead them into the most amazing of successes. In the end, as it comes down to it, the chips ultimately fall wherever they may and it is up to whomever is at the helm to make the important decisions with only their natural resolve, as well as the conviction of their psyches, to guide them as best as they see fit at the present time. To assess the psychological reasoning behind the act of declaring war, one must

Own-race bias Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Own-race bias - Research Paper Example In this time, black slaves were considered so different and removed from the aristocratic, land owning class of their owners that their enslavement and torture for centuries was written off as being part of the system. Furthermore, during the Jim Crow era and throughout the passing of the separate but equal legislation, African-Americans in this country were viewed as a concrete, separate racial category not only by many whites, but also by the law itself. In many ways, the separate but equal Brown v. Board of Education hearing reflects the rigid, concrete, categorical race structures that were prevalent in this country during that time. Legal terms like separate but equal give an indication of the way people viewed each other at this time. Obviously, strong categorical race structures dominated the way peers viewed peers. Race would have been at the forefront of the way most people viewed each other initially. Before peers could say hello, there would have been a quick, unconscious categorization of the person they were approaching based on their race and the race of the peer. This initial judgment is no different today, but the recent trends in the multicultural population of the United States have given way to blurred categorical race structures. As a system of rigid, concrete race categories is faced with individuals whose backgrounds are composed of two or even many of these categories, the way individuals perceive each other is forced to change. When individuals comprise several racial categories, peers cannot make such easy judgments as were made during previous eras. If a peer appears to be from a racial category one considers his or her own, and this same peer also appears to be from a racial category one does not consider his or her own, initial separation judgments are confused. This recent breaking down of categorical race structures has obvious implications on the way humans perceive one another, but how does this change affect human facial memory? The body of literature has shown that social categorization occurs within the early stages of perception, but lasts only briefly (Brewer, 1988) making it difficult to study. One model that helps explain the way humans remember faces is the In-Group and Out-Group Memory model (Pauker, Weisbuch, Ambady, Sommers, Adams, & Ivcevic, 2009). This model explains human facial perception as a categorization based on whether the perceived individual is of the same group as the perceiver. For example, an Asian person may perceive another Asian face as being â€Å"in-group†. Furthermore, Malpass & Kravitz (1969) showed that people have a tendency to have better facial memory of faces they classify as in-group, and lower facial memory of faces they classify as out-group (Malpass & Kravitz, 1969); a finding that Pauker and colleagues have shown to be repeated by over 100 studies (Pauker, Weisbuch, Ambady, Sommers, Adams, & Ivcevic, 2009). The own race bias links individuals’ in- or out-group categorization of others to individuals’ facial memories of these others by explaining that people remember faces they categorize as in-group better than faces they catego