Psychology and Pop Culture: An Empirical Adventure examines the psychological aspects of pop culture preferences, personality, and behavior from across sixteen research studies. The authors analyze such phenomena as superhero and antihero fandoms, internet trolls, women in popular culture, generational preferences, and romance and sexuality. Analyzing pop culture in the context of the #MeToo movement, LGBTQIA+ representation, and contemporary politics, Keith W. Beard, April Fugett, and Britani Black pay close attention to contemporary issues of inclusion and marginalization.
This book is perhaps the first systematic treatment of politics from the perspective of cultural psychology. Politics is a complex that psychology usually fails to understand— as it assumes a position in society that attempts to be free of politics itself. Politics is associated both with an everyday practice, and the dynamics of globalization; with the way group conflicts, ideologies, social representations and identities, are lived and co-constructed by social actors. The authors of the book address these issues through their research grounded in different parts of the world, on democracy and political order, the social representation of power, gender studies, the use of metaphors and symbolic power in political discourse, social identities and methodological questions. The book will be used by social and political psychologists but is also of interest to the other social sciences: political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, educationalists, and it is at a level where sophisticated lay public would be able to appreciate its coverage. Its use in upperlevel college teaching is possible, and expected at graduate/postgraduate levels.
With a Foreword by Danny Fingeroth, former Group Editor of Marvel's Spider-Man comics line Popular culture, simply stated, is the language of a people, expressed through everything from its clothing, food choices, and religious practices to its media. The popular and predominant values, interests, and needs of a society find their way into mass consciousness through a variety of venues including literature, cinema, television, video games, sport, and music. Through the inter-related forces of mass production, global marketing and the Internet, the fruits of popular culture penetrate into stores, living rooms, and everyday experience of children, teens, and adults in the form of catchphrases, toys, iconography, celebrities, and indelible images. Psychotherapists and counselors who can tap into the powerful images, messages, and icons of popular culture have at their disposal an unlimited universe of resources for growth, change, and healing. Using real-world case examples and sound psychological theory, this book demonstrates how you can immediately start incorporating popular culture icons and images into your counseling or therapy. In this way, the authors will help elevate your ability to conduct clinical interviews with clients of all ages and all types of clinical problems.
Have you ver wondered why people are the way they are? Or why some fictional characters are so memorable? This fun look at personality psychology (yes, fun) explores how some very popular characters are able to worm their way into our hearts. Through the lens of typology, the works of Charles Schulz, J.K. Rowling, and others are seen more fully, and insight is given as to why they are so loved by people all over the world across multiple generations. It just may change how you see the world too.
Using the authors’ clinical practices and their teaching experiences, along with a series of quotes from movies, TV, advertising and music, this book will help the reader navigate real-world issues. For instance, “Show me the money,” from Jerry Maguire, offers sound financial advice, and “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” from Gone with the Wind, provides insight about love and loss. These references from popular culture help clarify and instruct; they also explain that the prevalence of images, sounds, and words that surround us have something to offer. Indeed, the book allows the authors to come from behind their couches and give direct practical advice, as well as information about ourselves, from the everyday echoes of popular culture. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/popular-culture-meets-psychology/200907/self-help-through-popular-culture-i-money
This e-book presents a crucial work in the systematic study of educators’ cinematic reflections and to what extent could these be interpreted in terms of the theoretical framework of Habermas’s domains of reflection and discursive acts. The chapters in this volume altogether describe important theoretical developments, data analysis, and significant findings about the importance of popular film in pedagogy. The topics in this book present an exploratory view of reflective practices, cinematic experiences and journaling. Sample essays are also provided for the benefit of readers. It is through these converging possible cinematic explorations that we may be able to move from solitary/monologic reflective practices to a rational reconstructive educational pedagogy. This e-book will be of interest to students, researchers and teachers in the realm of psychology, education and pedagogy.
Explores the emotional underpinnings of the rise of football as the people's game, the appeal of the motor car and other consumer goods, the strategies of advertising, the cultural predominance of pop music, and images of the countryside revealing the common positive side of these cultural forms, which are vehicles for psychological integration.
Utilizing each chapter to present core topical and timely examples, Pop Culture Freaks highlights the tension between inclusion and individuality that lies beneath mass media and commercial culture, using this tension as a point of entry to an otherwise expansive topic. He systematically considers several dimensions of identity--race, class, gender, sexuality, disability--to provide a broad overview of the field that encompasses classical and contemporary theory, original data, topical and timely examples, and a strong pedagogical focus on methods. Pop Culture Freaks encourages students to develop further research questions and projects from the material. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are brought to bear in Kidd's examination of the labor force for cultural production, the representations of identity in cultural objects, and the surprising differences in how various audiences consume and use mass culture in their everyday lives. This new, revised edition includes update examples and date to reflect a constantly changing pop culture landscape.
Psychologists turn their attention to The Simpsons, one of America's most popular and beloved shows, in these essays that explore the function and dysfunctions of the show's characters. Designed to appeal to both fans of the show and students of psychology, this unique blend of science and pop culture consists of essays by professional psychologists drawn from schools and clinical practices across the country. Each essay is designed to be accessible, thoughtful, and entertaining, while providing the reader with insights into both The Simpsons and the latest in psychological thought. Every major area of psychology is covered, from clinical psychology and cognition to abnormal and evolutionary psychology, while fresh views on eclectic show topics such as gambling addiction, Pavlovian conditioning, family therapy, and lobotomies are explored.
