Emotions and identity in the figured world of becoming a doctor

CONTEXT: There is little room in clerkship curricula for students to express emotions, particularly those associated with the development of a caring identity. Yet it is recognised that competence, alone, does not make a good doctor. We therefore set out to explore the relationship between emotions and identity in clerkship education. Our exploration was conceptually oriented towards Figured Worlds theory, which is linked to Bakhtin's theory of dialogism.

METHODS: Nine female and one male member of a mixed student cohort kept audio-diaries and participated in both semi-structured and cognitive individual interviews. The researchers identified 43 emotionally salient utterances in the dataset and subjected them to critical discourse analysis. They applied Figured Worlds constructs to within-case and cross-case analyses, supporting one another's reflexivity and openness to different interpretations, and constantly comparing their evolving interpretation against the complete set of transcripts.

RESULTS: Students' emotions were closely related to their identity development in the world of medicine. Patients were disempowered by their illnesses. Doctors were powerful because they could treat those illnesses. Students expressed positive emotions when they were granted positions in the world of medicine and were able to identify with the figures of doctors or other health professionals. They identified with doctors who behaved in caring and professionally appropriate ways towards patients and supportively towards students. Students expressed negative emotions when they were unable to develop their identities.

CONCLUSIONS: Critical discourse analysis has uncovered a link between students' emotions and their identity development in the powerful world of becoming and being a doctor. At present, identity development, emotions and power are mostly tacit in undergraduate clinical curricula. We speculate that helping students to express emotions and exercise power in the most effective ways might help them to develop caring identities.

Emotions & social change in Ireland:Exploring habitus shift in liquid modernity

Drawing on insights from a range of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, history, politics, but particularly sociology and sociological theory, this thesis explores the relationship between emotions and social change in late or 'liquid' modernity. It deploys the Republic of Ireland in the twentieth century as a case study. It argues that the Irish case in an ideal site for this research given the speed and scale of changes that have occurred there, particularly since the 1950's. The primary research question guiding the study is: What has been the effect of 'social change' in Ireland on the emotional lives of Irish people? The thesis is structured in three parts. Part one (chapters one to three) is primarily theoretical. It aims to develop a distinctive theoretical framework, process-relational realism, and argues that three concepts, properly treated, are central to answering the research question. These are emotion, power and (emotional) habitus. Part two is a bridging chapter, in which the empirical portion of the study, its design and method, are outlined. This study is based on a series of qualitative life-history interviews conducted using the Biographical Narrative Research Method. Part three is primarily empirical. The first chapter critically explores Bauman's concept of liquid modernity in relation to the Irish case and offers a short social history of the Irish twentieth century, which focuses on emotions and power. The second deploys two (ideal-type) interview cases to support the argument that Ireland experienced a habitus shift, from a relatively homogeneous to a heterogeneous habitus, and a corresponding shift from a relatively repressive emotional regime to a more expressive one, with significant effects on the emotional habitus. The final chapter takes a broader view of these changes, suggests that social change has been ambivalent, and outlines a new typology of emotional pathologies that the study suggests are characteristic of contemporary emotional life.

The Casimir effect in the presence of compactified universal extra dimensions

The Casimir force in a system consisting of two parallel conducting plates in the presence of compactified universal extra dimensions (UXD) is analyzed. The Casimir force with UXDs differs from the force obtained without extra dimensions. A new power law for the Casimir force is derived. By comparison to experimental data the size R of the universal extra dimensions can be restricted to R⩽10 nm for one extra dimension.

Property and Emotions

Relatively little has been written on the connection between property and emotions from a legal perspective, despite the centrality of property in everyday life and the complex relationships that exist between owners and their property. Scholars working in other disciplines have analyzed these links, identifying ‘proprietary’ emotions and corresponding emotional traits. However, little has been mapped onto the field of law. This paper looks at key emotions surrounding property as identified in psychological and, to a lesser extent, sociological literature. After mapping these onto selected areas of property law, it posits the need for a deeper and more collective field of inquiry.