The aim of the book is to bring Ichheiser's work and biography to the forefront of theory development in social and cultural psychology. First and foremost, the editors would like to thank all authors of the book for their rich contributions.
Historical Perspectives
Moving Between Disciplines
Selected Works from Ichheiser’s German, English, and Polish Papers
About the Editors
About the Authors
She is currently a senior postdoc at the Faculty of Psychology at Sigmund Freud Private University. She studied at the Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna and at the Alpen Adria University of Klagenfurt.
Introduction: Finding a Biography
Moreover, the psychologist, who recognized that misunderstandings were the basis of every interpersonal interaction, felt that he was misunderstood not only in his private life, but also in his scientific work. When reading his texts, the impression can easily arise that Ichheiser possessed a kind of greed for knowledge that, in his eyes, should bring him power, that is, success in his personal and scientific endeavors.
The Contributions
Schor-Tschudnowskaja (chapter on "An "Iron Curtain" Between People: Theoretical Paradoxes in the Writings of Gustav Ichheiser") nicely treats Ichheiser's approach of applying both psychological and sociological theories to his subjects of interest—a rather unusual approach for his time . Dietrich's chapter thus adds an additional dimension to Ichheiser's life story that we usually do not even begin to grasp when we read just one or two of his academic writings.
Two main themes that resonate in his work are, on the one hand, his general interest in human misunderstandings (such as general human encounters, e.g. 1928; in specific settings of professional or educational testing, e.g. at the social level). and in relations with nations, e.g. b, 1951) and on the other hand his rich approach to the analysis of these topics from a phenomenological, psychological and sociological point of view. Finally, Dietrich (chapter "Schizophrenia Takes Me Home: The Eradication of Gustav Ichheiser and His Commitment to Psychiatry") rounds off the entire book with his psychotherapeutic analysis of Ichheiser's previously unpublished manuscript, Am I Crazy - Am I Railroaded? ' to the State Mental Asylum: My Own Retrospective Interpretation (1966).
Historical Perspectives
Seclusion: A Safe Place? Remarks on the Biography of an Outsider
Everyone was all too aware of the political relations that were popular with the Alma Mater Rudolphina. Take for example Edgar Zilsel's request for the transmission of the venia legend (habilitation), which was stopped with ignorant nonchalance in 1924 by the reactionary and anti-Semitic philosophy professors of the University of Vienna (Fleck, 2015).
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Faced with the reactionary anti-Semitic climate at the university, it was not precisely this position as an outsider that made new thinking possible. The ambivalent attitude of the German labor movement made its own contribution to the psychotechnical boom.
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VIII)
In seiner Abwesenheit gehörte Karl Bühlers Frau dem Vorschlagsausschuss der Österreichischen Arbeitsorganisation für Psychotechnik an. Mitte 1927 zog das Psychotechnische Institut der Wiener Industriebezirkskommission in die sogenannte Seilerstätte im Zentrum Wiens.
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Die „empirische Psychologie“ von Franz Brentano [„Die Methode der Psychologie unterscheidet sich nicht von der der Naturwissenschaften“: die „empirische Psychologie“ von Franz Brentano]. Eine sozialhistorische Studie zur Bildungs- und Berufsberatung in Wien. Die Berufsberatungsstelle der Stadt Wien und die Arbeiterkammer Wien.
Who Is Ichheiser?”: A Person Who Failed Himself and the World
Two and a half years after Redl's request, Ichheiser arrived in the United States, thanks to the help of the British Refugee Council. Thanks to ambiguous letters sent by the SPSL to the British Consulate in Warsaw, Ichheiser was finally able to travel to London in the spring of 1939.
On the Way Toward a Critique of Success
Her total personality is always "acknowledged" in relation to the typical aspect of physical appearance, and physical beauty is considered "the actual essence of her". A "sociology of success" should deal with "success-relevant characteristics of the individuals and their behavior and the environmental constellations" understood as "two sides of essentially one and the same complex situation" (Ichheiser, 1930, p. 3) ).
Arduous First Steps
After spending some time at the label, the department's resources were cut and he was fired. Clark University was considered one of America's elite universities in the first half of the twentieth century.
Ichheiser’s American Publications
A few weeks later, in July 1951, Gustav Ichheiser was admitted to a psychiatric institution at the request of Chicago welfare authorities. Ichheiser's view of the social dynamics of antisemitism is largely consistent with a research position on ethnocentrism, which understands prejudice as rooted in real social conflict.
No One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
In the archive letter, two sections are marked by hand: the reference to Morgenthau and the reference to the essentially uncertain position of the author. The final decision would be made by an advisory committee at the end of the year.
Summary
Anyone who had to manage large research budgets had to regularly look for potential 'registrars'. The RF employees' offer to a stranger – who also turned out to be an inmate of a psychiatric institution – is an example of this. Ein Beitrag zu einer 'Soziologie des Erfolges' [Machiavelli's anatomy between politics and morality: a contribution to the 'sociology of success'].
Moving Between Disciplines
An “Iron Curtain” Between People
Theoretical Paradoxes in the Writings of Gustav Ichheiser
The Impossibility of the Mutually Shared Based on Psychological Premises
Instead, he finds himself forced to soberly record that knowing the other in his authenticity is impossible. In this way, he concludes from the fundamental lack of "actuality" in human relations that human beings themselves are, in principle, unpredictable.
The Sociologically Justified Impossibility of the Authentic
As a result, within society, the individual and his relationships are deprived of the foundation of authenticity. In the second half of the twentieth century, the concept of resonance found its way into sociological theory, for example, through Niklas Luhmann or Charles Taylor.
The Certainty of Language and the Uncertainty of the Social World
Language and the word as a bridge between people were very important vehicles for Ichheiser. In any case, he was at home among writers, especially among those who would have shared the following worldview with him: “The world is made up of shards that are falling apart; it is a dark, disjointed chaos, held together by writing alone” (Kertesz, 2005, p. 107).16 Was Ichheiser's pedantic, compulsive style.
The Art of the Modern Life: Welcoming Ambivalence
Ichheiser's works emerged at the beginning of the era of the dissolution of borders, whether geographical, linguistic or cultural. Even today, the theme of the own and the stranger dominates almost all humanistic and social science disciplines.
Selected Works from Ichheiser’s German, English, and Polish Papers
Being and Appearance: I Am Not What
I Appear to Be — Ichheiser’s Viennese Works on Social Consciousness
And conversely, there are only words for that which attracts the attention of consciousness itself. Let us give him the inner freedom to adapt his appearance to his being without taking away his power.
Apperception
Ichheiser therefore concludes that science is in danger of disregarding theoretically significant moments because there are simply no names for them.
The Self-Awareness
The second type is a being that arises based on appearance (I as You). It is an evaluation of one's own person based on factual or social processes of comparison.
Expression and Impression
The letter A represents the expression value, that is, the value of the appearance a, relative to the actual inner i. The first problem mentioned by Ichheiser (1932) concerns the question of the origins of the connection.
Physical Appearance
The external will be placed at the center of the self, and the individual is only concerned with it, and the external appearance is the bearer of the self. How do outsiders assess the impression of the individual and what conclusions do they draw.
Social Appearance
The meaning of certain impressions can only be interpreted with the understanding of the character of the individual. It is no surprise that there are often conflicts between appearance and substance.
Beauty
The halo effect only describes that there are some errors in judgment; however, it completely ignores what happens to the individual being judged and why society or a person makes these mistakes when judging other people in the first place. Ichheiser (1928b) adds that physical beauty plays a greater role in women's self-confidence than in men's self-confidence because men value personality traits more than women do.
Consciousness
The organic perception is given individually; however, the visual perception shows the individuality to the outside world. According to Ichheiser (1927), language and art originally arose from the individual sphere of consciousness and are then converted into the common so that the self can contact you and society.
You-Awareness and Its Ethical and Aesthetic Structure
If an assessment of the individual is made primarily through the outside, the aesthetic qualities are in focus. The ethical-aesthetic structure is only a starting point for the entire structure of the You image.
Separation of the You-Awareness and Overcoming Conflicts
However, the Self image cannot be changed so easily and the original image is often retained. Since the self remains basically "the same," society demands a constant identity and recognizes the changes only temporarily.
Isolation
However, if society does not approve of these changes and transformations, the individual responds to the threatened equilibrium in three ways to restore self-consciousness and prevent the threat of separating being and appearance. The third option is that the individual gives to society what society wants on the outside, but tries to separate the inner from this process.
Conclusion
It is also reasonable to ask the question whether Gustav Ichheiser might have foreseen his subsequent fate, his illness. Benetka (ed.), Memories of Gustav Ichheiser, Theory and history in the human and social sciences,.
Appearance and Image in the Perception and Misperception of Self and Others
Ichheiser and Social Psychological Theory
In the first part of this chapter, I state some of Ichheiser's main ideas about the distortions that occur in social perception, given that I did not consider these approaches in my work. In the second part of the chapter, I highlight some of the differences in my own approach compared to Ichheiser's regarding centrality.
Distortions in Social Perception
Here there is an interplay between image and reality that moves in the rhythm of the personality's transformation. We also tend to underestimate the role of the situation in how we perceive others and their behavior.
The Centrality of “Image” in Social Relations
But this immediately creates a problem about what we call "real" in terms of personality. Ichheiser's understanding of the self shows us that we are all complex, fragmented, and ambiguous, and we only seem to be different in other people's perceptions.
Historical Insights on the Nature of Social Psychology: Gustaw Ichheiser’s Pre-War
This remains not only a valuable lesson for the field, but one that remains difficult to truly understand and even more difficult to put into practice.
Historical Background and Biographical Notes
It came to explore a wide range of topics important to the further development of the newly independent nation. However, Ichheiser left Poland on the eve of the invasion, going first to Switzerland, Great Britain and finally the US.
Comments on the Field of Social Psychology The Importance and Nature of the Field
For this reason, Ichheiser believed that social psychology was critically important to the continued development of the social sciences, especially psychology and sociology. Within this particular discussion of the idealist and realist approaches within education, Ichheiser (1936b) spends time arguing for the existence and value of a more basic intergenerational tension, which he says is built upon each successive generation questioning to the teachings of the previous generation. that is, until that teaching is confirmed (or not) by their own experience.
Understanding Our Social World: The Complex, Complicated, and Created Image of Ourselves and Others
This interpretation would be based primarily on the unity of the child as perceived by the teacher. From the individual's point of view, such typologies are not only simplification (uproszczenie), but also deformation (zniekświęcim).
Psychological Conflict as a Window onto the “Normal”
Similarly, it is important to distinguish between the course of the accident and the causes of the accident. Unpublished manuscript, Chicago, IL: In the collection of the University of Chicago (Found by Floyd Webster Rudmin).
Selected Topics: Ichheiser’s Primary Fields of Interest
Ichheiser’s Critique of Success and the Performance Principle
Introduction
Origins of a Theory of Success: Ichheiser’s Reading of Machiavelli
In the struggle for success, those who want to comply with all current standards of behavior are at a disadvantage against all those who limit compliance with the standards to the minimum that can be accessed without risk through the intervention of social "punishment." (Ichheiser, 1927, p. 304).1. Ichheiser ultimately studies the “really effective laws” of social rise and fall as part of a comprehensive research program (Ichheiser, 1933a) that he himself began to specifically address in his book Kritik des Erfolges (Ichheiser, 1930a).
Social Psychology of the Social Up and Down: Success or Productivity
Ichheiser today: On the social functionality of the performance principle in the competitive neoliberal society. From the perspective of the actors, the social order initially appears as a series of imperatives and constraints.
The Veil of Success: Sociology and/or a Critique of Success?
Of social-psychological importance is the precarious and paradoxical situation in which people find themselves because of the antimony that Ichheiser points out and the associated tendency towards obfuscation. Consequently, there can be no question of a sociology of success, since the basis for it must first be acquired through the criticism of obfuscating tendencies.
Ichheiser’s Studies About Success: Social Psychology and Critique
Ichheiser's (1930a) concept of critique thus fully refers to the immanent structure of social order and the ideological formation necessary for its maintenance. Ichheiser (1930a) mentions in his Critique of Success classification as a seemingly almost transcendental fundamental category of society.
Ichheiser Today: To the Social Functionality of the
For example, Ichheiser, in his early text on Machiavelli, writes about systems of social norms: “Thus the real (sociological and not somehow 'intended') meaning of law is not 'justice', but the order intended by certain relations of power, viz. regularity of human behavior” 28 (Ichheiser, 1927, p. 303). Even if his critique of success deals with these turning points, the static concept of top-down social hierarchy and the corresponding narrow concept of critique preclude a deeper analysis of the processes of production and reproduction of social order and social order. the functioning of the actors that make up society.
Performance Principle in the Neoliberal Competitive Society
In the sense of marketability, the success principle fully absorbs the legitimizing function of the performance principle. In the field of popular culture - to which Neckel refers directly - the "quality" of the product often plays no independent role.
Ideology of Success and the Dilemma of Education Today
Distinctions and Inequalities
Norms of equality promoted at school contribute to the confirmation of the current social order, creating certain expectations of equality among students. Such differences include the age steps and the transition processes that the individual may follow to become a legitimate member of the community.
Values at Work in Development and Education
The child's emotional experience is thus a complex process of negotiation between her subjective world, the window of possible future selves provided by the school, and the contextual conditions in which the experience takes place (Iannaccone, Marsico, & Tateo, 2012). In any case, the child and the learner will have to negotiate between the different possible trajectories of the future child imagined by society and their own expectations, desires and needs.
Success as a Value and as a Measure
Nevertheless, today's education systems have a discrepancy between the norms of success and the actual conditions of success. Yet, since the same process of education generates distinctions and inequalities, the fact that some individuals meet the conditions of success in school becomes a confirmation of the norms of success.
Gustav Ichheiser on Rationality and Irrationality
For example, the views and interpretations of 'in principle' and 'in fact' belong to different categories. Although the meaning of 'in principle' cannot be reconciled with that of 'in fact', these meanings are mutually determined; in other words, the meaning of 'in principle' only makes sense if it contradicts 'in fact'.
A General Note on Rationality and Irrationality
The other of Pascal's term, l'esprit de finesse, refers to intuitive and creative features of the mind. The question of rationality and irrationality has haunted the human and social sciences ever since.
Gustav Ichheiser on Rationality and Irrationality
According to Ichheiser, the most important types of irrationalities derive from different perspectives of Self and Others. From the perspective of someone who argues that it is rational to act on the basis of self-interest, acting on behalf of the Other would be clearly irrational.
The Importance of Ichheiser’s Work Today
This concept includes intentional; the reconstruction of self and others in and through the transformation of beliefs, desires and practices; and thereby encouraging “open self-reflexive dialogic thinking” (p. 34). It would be completely inappropriate to conceive of reason as the private domain of the individual.
Conclusion: Perspectives on Ichheiser’s Hospitalization
Schizophrenia Is Taking Me Home: Gustav Ichheiser’s Uprooting and His
Commitment to Psychiatry
Initial Thoughts
Essential Biographical Notes on Ichheiser
5 He did not follow Bühler, but instead gained expertise in future and modern phenomenology (see the chapter “Who is Ichheiser?”: A person who failed himself and the world”). In her autobiography, Edith Weisskopf does not even mention marriage (see the chapter "Who is Ichheiser?": A person who failed himself and the world").
Being Uprooted by Displacement
