Abstract
Choosing a subject to think and write about is the first step in any psychobiographical study, then the process of working with data rises front and center. Usually, data must be various enough and sufficiently psychologically oriented to proceed. However, when there are so many sources about subject’s life history that you can work, how to strike psychological pay dirt in too much biographical data is a key issue of psychobiographical study. To effectively solve this problem, Irving Alexander suggested that if the biographical material related to the following pointers, these data will be selected and analyzed as the object for its unusual prominence and psychological importance. The first indicator is frequency, which infers to any repeated communications, themes, scene, events, happenings, means-end sequences, relationship patterns, conflicts, obsessions, and so on. Anyway, this indicator can perform with many forms. Primacy is another indicator of psychological saliency, what comes first appeared in the text and occasionally tells us more than anything else, or tells us something uniquely. This pointer applies most usefully to autobiography. The third is emphasis, the fact seems obvious enough: when our subjects italicize some happening, we ought to mark it as salient. In other words, something deliberately is italicized in some way or stressed the unique nature in effort by the subject, we should take attention to those data, which assume the form of over-, under- and misplaced emphasis. A fourth is isolation, that is material jarringly stands out from surrounding context and thus seems not to fit at all. Next one is uniqueness, some material that is marked by the subject as unprecedented or somehow especially singular. The task of us is to restore the link between the isolated fragment and the web of unconscious ideas for the material is stand, to uncover the deep meaning. A sixth is incompletion, which is in evidence when a subject starts a story and then stops in the middle, or changes the subject, or in whatever way fails to see a thought through to its conclusion. When a subject begins a story but neglects to finish it, in effect trailing off without adding necessary details, a kind of avoidance to reach conclusion, and so on, all those can be put into this indicator. Error, distortion and omission might also signify the presence of psychological salient material, especially the error description of memory or distortion of the real events or ignored the key details, so error and distortions can assume infinite forms. Omission means just what it sounds like it would. Besides incompletion, omissions can also function as total or partial lacunae-an absence if expectable content. The final one is negation, refers to the suspiciously emphatic sometimes also incongruous “no”-especially when “no” is said in the absence of any question. It is also include strenuous disavowal especially in the absence of any positive assertion to the contrary, in the sense of “protesting too much” any given psychological or biographical or psychological fact.
Key words
Psychobiography /
psychological saliency /
indicators of saliency
Cite this article
Download Citations
“Indicators of Saliency” in Analysis of Psychobiographical Data[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2012, 35(2): 462-466
{{custom_sec.title}}
{{custom_sec.title}}
{{custom_sec.content}}
References
[1] Alexander, I. Personology: method and content in personality assessment and psychobiography. [J].,(1990).,:.
[2] Shu, Y. Y. .A Study of Dual Image on Historical Figure: A Case Study of Zhuge Liang with Psychobiographical Analysis. [J].,(2009). ,:.
[3] Elms, A.Uncovering lives: The uneasy alliance of biography and psychology. [J].,(1994).,:.
[4] Barenbaum, N.B.. Four, two, or one? Gordon Allport and the unique personality. [J].,(2005).,:223-239
[5] Laplanche, J,& Pontalis, J. B. .The language of psychoanalysis. [J].,(1973). ,:.
[6] Schultz, W. T..The prototypical scene: A method for generating psychobiographical hypotheses. [J]., (2003). ,:67-89
[7] McAdams, D.P.,.The stories we lives by. [J].,(1993).,:.
[8] Evans, R. The kids stay in the picture. [J]., (1994).,:.