Parapsychology Abstracts International or behavioral experiments. The data Suggest that even the results of physical experiments may not be cumulative in the absolute sense by statistical criteria. It is argued that the study of the actual cumulativeness found in physical data could inform social scientists about what to expect from replicated experiments under good conditions. - DA ; David J. Disobsessin acligion, ritual, and the social sciences in Brazil. Cul- -tural Anthropology, 1989 (May), 4(2), 182-193. 25 refs oy If it has become commonplace in some corners of anthropology to read rituals as texts, the inverse of this proposition, that anthropological texts are rituals of a sort, is perhaps less obvious and less well explored. To treat texts as rituals and rituals as texts is to collapse both categories under a broader realm of ideology and to ex- plore how the structures of the anthropologist’s text repeat those of the interpreted ritual. As a result, this kind of ethnographic writing and reading involves rethinking the hierarchy of observer and observed by looking for points where the discourse of the other affects one’s own dis- course. This article explores the relations between text and ritual, observing discourse and observed discourse, by ar- ticulating Geertz’s position (1973:448) that culture’ and ritual can be interpreted as texts with Jonathan Culler’s argument that “critical disputes about a text [read ‘ritual, ‘religious system’) can frequently be identified as a dis- placed reenactment of conflicts dramatized in the text [ritual, religious system]" (1982:215). The case study adopted for analysis here involves disobsession (disobsession), a type of exorcism ritual found among the Spiritists of Brazil, and the various mappings of the Brazilian religious system. It examines critical disputes among sociologists and anthropologists regarding the disob- Session ritual and the position of Spiritism in the Brazilian religious system, and it traces these disputes back to con- flicts dramatized both within the ritual and among the dif- ferent actors in the religious system (see section 4). Within the ritual, Spiritist mediums receive errant spirits that represent non-Spiritist social categories and discourses; for example, Spiritists frequently “disobsess" spirits that rep- resent the Catholic or Afro-Brazilian religions. Likewise, followers of Spiritism, Catholicism, or the Afro-Brazilian religions all have implicit maps of the Brazilian religious system, and these conflicting maps play themselves out in the conflicting interpretations of sociologists and anthropologists. - DA 03752. Hill, Theodore P. Random-number guessing and the first digit phenomenon. Psychological Reports, 1988 (Jun), 62(3), 967-971. 12 refs; 1 table To what extent do individuals “absorb” the empirical regularities of their environment and reflect them in be- havior? A widely-accepted empirical observation called the First Digit Phenomenon or Benford’s Law says that in collections of miscellaneous tables of data (such as physical constants, almanacs, newspaper articles, etc), the first sig- nificant digit is much more likely to be a low number than a high number. In this study, an analysis of the fre- quencies of the first and second digits of “random” six-digit numbers guessed by people Suggests that people’s responses share some of the properties of Benford’s Law; first digit 1 Occurs much more frequently than expected; first digit 8 or 9 occurs much less frequently; and the second digits are much more uniformly distributed than the first. - DA 03753. Kihlstrom, John F. The cognitive unconscious. Science, 1987 (Sep), 237(484), 1445-1452. 44 refs disobsession:: 32 Vol. 7, No. 2. December 1989 Contemporary research in cognitive psychology reveals the impact of nonconscious mental structures and processes on the individual’s conscious experience, thought, and ac- tion. Research on perceptual-cognitive and motoric skills indicates that they are automatized through experience, and thus rendered unconscious. In addition, research on sub- liminal perception, implicit memory, and hypnosis indicates that events can affect mental functions even though they cannot be consciously perceived or remembered. These findings suggest a tripartite division of the cognitive uncon- scious into truly unconscious mental processes operating on knowledge structures that may themselves be preconscious or subconscious. - DA 03754, Kukla, Andre. Nonempirical issues in psychol- ogy. American Psychologist, 1989 (May), 44(5), 785-794, 34 refs The general decline of radical empiricism has led to 4 renewed appreciation of the role of nonempirical con- tributions to the advancement of science. In psychology; this has meant the development of a theoretical wing com- parable to the well-established theoretical traditions that exist in other scientific disciplines. Theoretical psychology is no longer the collection of vague generalities that once made up the traditional “systems and theories" course. It is an active subdiscipline with a well-articulated research program and a growing corpus of special methods and results. This article surveys the types of issues dealt with by theoretical psychologists and discusses the relation be- tween their work and empirical research. - DA 03755. Leary, David E. Telling likely stories: The rhetoric of the new psychology, 1880-1920. Journal of the History. of the Behavioral Sciences, 1987 (Oct), 23, 315-331. 43 refs , This is a story about the New Psychologists who strove at the turn of the century to institutionalize a new science and to create a new set of professional roles. More particularly, it is about the rhetorical fabric they wove around the nascent science of psychology. The ar- ticle focuses, one by one, on different strands of this fabric--on (1) what persuaded the first generation of American psychologists to take an interest in the New Psychology, (2) the arguments these aspiring psychologists presented to presidents and trustees to insure that they could pursue their interest within particular institutional settings; (3) the arguments they put forth against the rights of other persons to engage in similar, competing pursuits: (4) the arguments they laid before various administrators, officials, interest groups, and the general public to guarantee continued and even increased support; and (5) the arguments they presented in the form of theories and practices developed between approximately 1880 and 1920. In this way, it attempts to construct a likely story about the establishment of the New Psychology in America. - DA 03756. Nardi, Peter M. Toward a social psychology of entertainment magic (conjuring). Symbolic Interaction, 1984, 7(1), 25-42, 1 chart; 18 refs The dynamics of everyday social interactions can of- ten be clarified by studying the social organization of un- usual realms of activity. One such activity is conjuring-- magic performed as entertainment. This article discusses various sociological and social psychological dimensions in the performance of magic. It focuses on the similarities between a magic act and the social interactions of everyday life. It also discusses the dialectic between magic reasoning and mundane reasoning--between the audience’s expectations built from the organization of everyday life Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000700350007-6 Soo om Od im) ro rowan) a BN et oe RO eta eee