The present research investigates cultural values, approaches to conflict management, and perceived negotiation satisfaction in manager samples from the UK and the Netherlands. Three studies (total N = 412) were conducted, of which Study 1 and 2 pertained to the development of the measure and Study 3 was used to conduct the main analysis. The research focus centres around the following main objectives: a) refinement of conflict management models and instruments; b) profile analyses of Dutch and British conflict management approaches using Schwartz's (1992, 1994) Value Types to explain observed differences, and c) testing of a model describing interrelations between cultural values, approaches to conflict management, conflict context, and perceived negotiation satisfaction. Previous research on conflict management modeled conflict behaviour on the basis of a concern for self vs. concern for others matrix, which incorporated communication styles. The present research distinguishes between the underlying concerns, conflict management strategies, and communication styles to predict perceived negotiation satisfaction. Furthermore, conflict management dynamics are investigated by comparing the ratings of own vs. other team's conflict management approach. In-group vs. out-group differentiation was dependent on the social desirability of the conflict management approach in question. Dutch managers associated themselves less and British managers more with a concern for Inconvenience, Avoiding, and Indirect communication, whereas British managers associated themselves more and Dutch managers less with these approaches. Results for cultural values showed that the main difference between Dutch and British managers concerned a higher score for Dutch managers on Self Transcendence and a higher score on Self Enhancement for British managers. Self Enhancement mediated the effect for nationality for Dominating strategy. Furthermore, Self Transcendence predicted a concern for Clarity, a Problem Solving strategy, and a Consultative communication style. Nationality as predictor of Concern for Inconvenience, Avoiding strategy, and Indirect communication style was not mediated by Value Types. Suggestions are made for future research exploring the role of Uncertainty Avoidance at the individual level. Success and Comfort were predicted by own and other team's Conflict Management Approach, additional to cultural value types and contextual variables. National differences were observed for particular predictors of perceived negotiation satisfaction.

We investigated the dynamics of spatial attention in an active viewing task, namely reading, and the effects of the load of target words on these dynamics. We showed that, over the course of a fixation, attention was modulated by the load of the fixated word and the upcoming word. The load of words was manipulated by varying word frequency and the orthographic familiarity of the first trigram in words. In a variation of the dynamic-orienting paradigm (Fischer, 1999), participants read sentences or strings of words for the primary task and discriminated gaze-contingent probes - occurring with variable spatial and temporal offsets from the first fixations on words - for the secondary task. Reading was evidenced by longer fixation durations on words with lower frequencies. The accuracy of probe discrimination was used to index attention. Early in a fixation, attention was focused on the gaze more when the fixated word was lower in frequency. This early effect of frequency was revealed for reading sentences and strings of words provided words were previewed before being fixated. Attention defocused over time and, by halfway through a fixation, orienting towards the to-be-fixated location (i.e., towards the right) began. Late in a fixation, attention had oriented more to the right of the gaze for high- than low-frequency words. Shortly before the saccade to the upcoming word, and during preview of this word, its processing was sufficiently advanced to affect attention: specifically, less attention remained at the gaze location when the first trigram of the upcoming word was orthographically less familiar. In sum, we showed that the moment-to-moment processing load of words affects the dynamics of spatial attention.

How do people make decisions in uncertain environments and what types of knowl- edge control their choices? Can our decisions be guided by unconscious influences or intuitive “gut” feelings? According to the Somatic Marker Hypothesis, a popular account of the role of affect in decision-making, emotion-based signals can guide our decisions in uncertain environments outside awareness. However, evidence for this claim can be ques- tioned on the grounds of inadequate and insensitive assessments of conscious knowledge. In this work, variations of a classic experience-based decision-making paradigm, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), are employed in combination with subjective measures of awareness in order to investigate the role played by unconscious influences. Specifically, the validity of post-decision wagering as a sensitive and bias-free measure of conscious content is examined and contrasted to confidence ratings and quantitative reports. The results demonstrate the inadequacy of post-decision wagering as a direct measure of conscious knowledge and also question the claim that implicit processes influence decision- making. In order to measure and understand the cognitive and psychological processes un- derlying performance on the IGT, computational modeling analyses are undertaken to provide deeper insights into the dynamics of decision-making. Reinforcement-learning models are evaluated using different model comparison techniques and a computational model of confidence ratings in decision-making under uncertainty is developed.

There is considerable controversy as to how the brain extracts numerosity information from a visual scene and as to how much attention is needed for this process. Traditionally, it has been assumed that visual enumeration is subserved by two functionally distinct mechanisms: the fast and accurate apprehension of 1 to about 4 items, a process termed "subitizing", and the slow and error-prone enumeration of larger numerosities referred to as "counting". Further to a functional dichotomy between these two mechanisms, an attentional dichotomy has been proposed. Subitizing has been thought of as a pre-attentive and parallel process, whereas counting is supposed to require serial attention. In this work, the hypothesis of a parallel and pre-attentive subitizing mechanism was tested. To this aim, the amount of attention that could be allocated to an enumeration task was experimentally manipulated. In Experiment 1, attentional set was manipulated such that attention could either be drawn to the relevant of two subsets to enumerate or had to be distributed to both subsets. Furthermore, the relationship of enumeration to perceptual grouping and item discrimination was explored. In Experiment 2, a dual-task approach was employed in which the amount of attentional resources available to enumeration was systematically modulated by imposing an additional task and by varying its attentional load. Experiment 3 investigated the neural correlates of visual enumeration under attentional load using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results indicated that (1) enumeration, particularly subitizing, was clearly compromised under conditions of distributed or reduced attention. (2) Both the enumeration of small and large numerosities was affected by such attentional manipulations. (3) Subitizing selectively activated brain areas associated with stimulus-driven attention. (4) Enumeration is contingent on other potentially attention-demanding visual processes such as perceptual grouping. The evidence presented here seriously challenges the traditionally held claim of a parallel and preattentive subitizing mechanism and suggests instead that small numerosity judgement requires visual attention. This weakens the argument of an attentional as well as a functional dichotomy and strengthens the idea that enumeration may be subserved by a single, continuous mechanism.

This dissertation examines the co-emergence of psychical research and modern professionalized psychology in the late nineteenth century. Questioning conservative historical accounts assuming an inherent incompatibility of these disciplines, this thesis argues that from the early 1880s to ca. 1910, it was often difficult if not impossible to draw a clear distinction between psychology and psychical research. Chapter 1 forms the integrative framework of the thesis through a historiographical review of changing attitudes to ‘occult’ properties of the mind in natural philosophy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Chapter 2 provides a study and comparison of concerns and epistemological presuppositions of the instigators and leading representatives of psychical research in England, France, Germany and the USA. Chapter 3 outlines competing methodological maxims in early experimental psychology, explores the work of the Society for Psychical Research in England and psychological societies conducting psychical research in Germany, and discusses the active involvement of the ‘father’ of modern American psychology, William James, in psychical research. Formulations of transcendental-individualistic models of unconscious or subliminal cognition by Carl du Prel in Germany and Frederic W. H. Myers in England, which informed the mature psychological thought of James in America and Théodore Flournoy in Switzerland, are discussed as landmarks in the history of concepts of the unconscious. Chapter 4 presents case studies of early professional psychologists repudiating psychical research from the territories of fledgling psychology, identifies recurring rhetorical patterns in these controversies, and connects them to wider cultural and historiographical developments studied in Chapter 1.

The aim of this thesis is the theoretical and empirical study of anxiety, defence and realityoriented functioning in social defence systems. The psychoanalytic background of the 'Tavistock approach' fonns the conceptual framework of this project. Thus the first chapter of the thesis discusses an overview of Freud's description of unconscious anxiety and defence, the positions of early psychic development as developed by Melanie Klein and Bion's extended view of projective identification as an early, non-verbal channel of emotional communication. An examination of group dynamics as studied by Freud and, in particular, Bion presents two major influences on the early work of the Tavistock group in the psychoanalytic study of organisations. In the second chapter, the emergence and establishment of the 'Tavistock approach' to the study of organisations is explored from a historical perspective. This serves to contextualise theoretical and professional shifts in this body of work, as well as illustrating the limited scope of its later application within the social defence systems paradigm. The following chapters present a re-worked, three-level view of social defence systems which incorporates co-existing defence-related and work-related states. This is an attempt to explore further the multiplicity of dynamics in social defence systems, utilising a wider range of psychoanalytic concepts. In order to test these theoretical constructs, an empirical study is carried out in two in-patient psychiatric wards. Using a psychoanalytically-influenced observational methodology, the empirical research focuses on the study of the institutions' cultures of work, hence connecting unconscious phantasy to work practices. The final chapter examines the main findings in a wider theoretical and professional framework. This thesis is a pilot study that attempts to illuminate the inner-workings of social defence systems through a psychoanalytic framework similar to the early Tavistock work in this area.

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The topic of this thesis is guilt. The thesis begins by considering the broad context of guilt as conceptualised across the humanities and social sciences. It then focuses on the extensive work done on guilt in psychoanalysis. The main contributions to the debates on guilt in psychoanalysis are investigated in detail to isolate the key issues in trying to understand guilt. The key question approached concerns the origin of guilt and its functioning in psychical life. The thesis shows how previous theorists have struggled to identify a plausible explanation for the presence of guilt in mental functioning and in particular for the suffering generated by pathogenic guilt. It argues that there are impasses in the work of Freud, Klein and others that prevent their being able to fully account for guilt. It employs insights and argument from the work of Jacques Lacan to proceed beyond those impasses. While the emphasis in the work of previous theorists was on trying to identify what subjects were really guilty of, beyond their superficial self-reproaches, this thesis argues that the avowal of guilt by subjects functions as a device to keep anxiety at a distance and, functioning as such, it is inherently deceptive. The thesis shows that Lacan revisits problems raised in his Ethics seminar from 1959-60 in 1972-3 in his Seminar XX 'Encore'. The theoretical developments in the later seminar show that the inscription of subjects in a sexed order is regulated by their relation to the signifier and produces differentials in relation to the law and Other jouissance. While most guilt theories argue that guilt is a 'fault' in the human being, Lacan's theoretical work allows us to argue that guilt is a 'fault' that is constructed in the moment of the construction of human subjectivity.

The thesis starts with the question: 'Does there exist a subject in Freud?' and looks for answers first in Freud's early formulations of the psychical apparatus in the 'Project (1895), 'Letter 52' to Fliess (1896), then Chapter VII of 'The Interpretation of Dreams' (1900), that is his first topography. The answer confirms our claim that there exists a subject in Freud, that it is unconscious and that it is largely included in and concealed by the Freudian term of 'ego' (Ich). In Chapter 2, our claim is carried forward through the second period of Freud's work to another aspect of Ich, not as unconscious, but as the narcissistic ego. Freud's introduction to the theory of narcissism (1914c) highlighted the dimension of ego as a libidinal object and its role in psychosis. The metapsychological papers, 'Drives and their Vicissitudes' (1915c), 'Repression' (1915d) and 'The Unconscious' (1915e) proved on the other hand that Freud had not abandoned his research on the structural, the symbolic dimension of the ego (Ich). In Chapter 3 the thesis focuses on two particular aspects of Freudian metapsychology, the structure of the ideals and identification. The sub-claim here is that identification in Freud is not simply an imaginary process involving regression from love, but also a particular substructure of the 'ego'. We develop this claim through the study of 'Group Psychology' (1921c) and Freud's second topography in the 'Ego and the Id' (1923b). In Chapter 4, we present a post-Freudian, object relations, view of the psychical structure, that is D. Lagache's : 'Psychoanalysis and Personality's Structure' (1958) and Lacan's own counter-presentation of the psychical structure as an 'Optical Schema' (1958), named after a model he adapted from experimental 19th century physics. In Chapter 5, we present Lacan's largely unknown theory of identification, as he developed it in Seminar IX Identification(1961-1962), first the identification of the subject to the signifier, then to object a. This supports our final claim that the formalization of object a and the status of the Real were first developed in Seminar IX, which is before Seminars Book X and XI. In Chapter 6, we present two major contributions by C. Conté , 'The Splitting of the Subject and his Identification'(1970) and 'Topological Surfaces' (1993) which lead us to conclude that Topology and the Real are the areas of research most suited to contemporary psychoanalysis which only now begin to show their relevance.