This chapter offers a brief review of the central arguments of the book, summed up in a theme of decentering the moral hero in my account of moral heroism. Refocusing our admiration and commemoration more neatly around achievements rather than achievers, positioning exemplarity in moral education as pedagogically promising when the figure of the hero isn’t the centerpiece of moral excellence, and opting for moral heroism as an achievement consisting in sacrificing rather than a state of character are all, among other things, ways of nudging the figure of the hero toward the periphery in my account of moral heroism. I embrace this elevation of action appraisal over person appraisal when it comes to moral heroism. This is not to say that the figure of the hero drops out entirely or fails to be of interest, however. I conclude by noting some possible directions of future work.

This chapter makes the case that Bloomsbury acted, crucially, as both the receptacle and the conduit for emerging ideas of psychoanalysis in Britain in the 1910s and beyond, with Bloomsbury functioning as a major vehicle for assimilating, disseminating, publishing, and translating emerging psychoanalytic ideas about feeling, emotion, and the unconscious to and for early twentieth-century British literature and culture. Bloomsbury figures read, reviewed, and translated Freud, trained as psychoanalysts, and held psychoanalytical gatherings, while Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press was the first to publish Freud’s work in English. Psychoanalytic texts would become central to the Hogarth Press’ lists, with the Press publishing texts including Freud’s Collected Papers and The International Psycho-Analytical Library, and books or lectures by early interpreters and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychology, including Ernest Jones, Sándor Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, René Laforgue, Charles Mauron, and Anna Freud. Further, this chapter argues that in a parallel and equally stunning act of “translation” from continental European thought into British culture, Bloomsbury also brought Post-Impressionist art to the English-speaking world during roughly the same period, with Roger Fry using language inflected by emerging psychoanalysis about “emotion” and “feeling” to describe both the production and the readerly reception of Post-Impressionist works of art.

This chapter first describes how we measure data, and how its creation has skyrocketed in recent years. We then define Big Data and psychology for the purposes of the book, and motivate why their intersection is important to study. The chapter ends with a guide to how to use the book, and brief summaries of the upcoming chapters.

This chapter introduces key themes of the "new psychology" of intergroup relations within systems, highlighting interconnection, intersectionality, temporal cycles, tipping points, and imagination. It challenges the limitations of ‘traditional’ psychology in addressing social change and emphasises the potential of these new approaches. The chapter begins by exploring systems thinking, recognizing that groups are internally divided and externally connected by intersecting identities, so changes within one element affect broader social structures. Intersectionality, critical theories and positioning theory are discussed to understand complex group interactions and power dynamics. The chapter also connects people and groups across time, emphasising the influence of historical context and the importance of future imagination in shaping present actions. It highlights the non-linear nature of social change, marked by tipping points. Finally, the chapter considers humans as part of larger biological and environmental systems, underscoring the interaction between social and physical environments, including the impact of climate change on group identities and norms.

Judging by rates of criminal recidivism, the very trauma that leads to American incarceration only amplifies inside facilities whose purported mission is to rehabilitate. Using psychiatric, literary, and sociological studies alongside three twentieth-century prison memoirs written by American men of color – Jarvis Jay Masters’s That Bird Has My Wings (2009), Shaka Senghor’s Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison (2013), and Ravi Shankar’s Correctional (2022) – this essay examines the use of bibliotherapy as a means of processing traumatic memory, reconnecting with community, redressing harm, and reclaiming control over one’s story to help stimulate and accelerate the process of healing and recovery. Life writing, and memoir specifically, allows for the transfiguration of generational, localized, and institutional trauma while bearing witness to the inner workings of carceral spaces, which are disproportionately populated by men of color and intentionally kept concealed from public view.

James’s modernism is based directly on the psychology he founded, and specifically on his recognition that the self is malleable (or “plastic”), aggregate, distributed, and capable of mental reform. Yet James’s outspoken critique of US imperialism and the lynching of African Americans reflected his understanding of the dangerous potential of conversion – namely, that revolutions in belief carry a measure of uncertainty and risk, not just to individual believers but to the very fabric of democratic thought. Jamesean conversion therefore dramatizes the processes by which consent is staged from within and from without. The self enacts the drama in the form of an internal dialogue in which one imagines one’s “self” inhabiting a particular temporo-spatial location, as if fulfilling the role of a protagonist in a work of fiction. Against that background, Henry James’s What Maisie Knew and Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware dramatize the processes through which individuals become plastically transformed under the manipulations of powerful “pattern-setters” of public opinion. By fracturing and fragmenting imperial forms of selfhood, these psychological Bildungsromane inaugurate a reform modernism that registers dissent from the imperial sway of groups, demonstrating the strenuous effort required by individuals to transform oppressive systems from within.

Ezra Pound launches the book as a dramatic “case study” illustrating William James’s theory of “conversion” as a cognitive process by which individuals become converts to a cause, be it artistic, religious, or political. Even as recent scholars have revitalized our understanding of James’s politics and his philosophical engagements with the social, they nonetheless underscore a conspicuous gap: none have investigated how James’s understanding of the social realm is indebted to his pioneering work as a psychologist and, more specifically, to his theorization of conversion as a cognitive phenomenon that impacts not just individuals but larger groups. At one extreme, conversion can yield blind commitment to doctrine, or, more productively, can fracture such monolithic narratives to achieve productive disagreement with, or “dissent” from, repressive or demagogic systems. Literary modernists after James can be understood as mind scientists because they deploy the psychodynamics of conversion both formally and thematically. By making the psychodynamics of conversion visible, their writings encourage readerly dissent from rigid points of view and authoritarian ideological frameworks.

The work of the first four chapters demonstrates that Nietzsche’s genealogical accounts can liberate us from our moral prejudices by exposing and bringing to light: that our experience is ordered by evaluative templates; how one framework came to subdue other alternatives; why morality enjoyed its factual success; and why it still holds a very tight grip on us. The work of Chapter 5 is to substantiate these conclusions. I achieve this end by way of my reading of “the psychological type of the redeemer,” which shows the links between On the Genealogy of Morality and The Anti-Christ. After clarifying what the type is, I argue that, thus understood, it enables us to notice that Nietzsche uses genealogical methods beyond 1887 and to better appreciate the central roles that feelings of shame and powerlessness, as well as longings for efficacy, play in conceptual reevaluations. Although this reading does not represent a common interpretive strategy, I show that it is one that Nietzsche himself recommends.

This chapter invites readers to consider how an engagement with hip-hop music and culture can contribute to a better understanding of mental health, psychiatry, psychology, public health, and neuroscience. It provides an introduction to hip-hop therapy, highlighting the use of rap by psychologists and counsellors to promote mental well-being. The chapter goes on to examine the work that the Hip-Hop Psych initiative has undertaken in advancing the role of hip-hop in primary care. With hip-hop’s pre-eminence as a global musical force, greater attention to how mental health is represented in hip-hop can provide healthcare professionals with tools to aid discussions with patients about potential trends related to hip-hop icons, such as contagion effects of suicide, self-harm, and self-medication. Hip-hop offers a platform for artists and those who embrace the culture to address their emotional experiences through rap. By exploring lyrical content, the chapter uncovers how performers express their mental health challenges and fashion resilience within challenging circumstances. It argues that attention to this material could also help identify language disturbances associated with mental health conditions, and indicates the potential gains from the use of technology and neuroscientific research to support hip-hop music interventions.

To discern trends in violent extremism research, we present a machine-learning analysis of over 34,000 articles published since the early 1900s. We identify two primary waves of research and, different to previous reviews, a clear diversification in studied groups, contexts, and topics. Less than 20% of articles employ methodologies that are conducive to drawing causal inferences. While more studies are using experimental and longitudinal methods, this increase is outpaced by the rise of methods that preclude the assessment of causality. Nuancing previous reviews, at the broader field level, violent extremism research is profoundly multidisciplinary, with political science, international relations, psychology, history, and law emerging as the “Big Five” contributors. At the study level, contributions from single disciplines remain the norm. While single-author contributions have rapidly declined in favor of team-based research, one-time contributing authors remain consistently high over time. To enhance future violent extremism research, we make five recommendations: (1) prioritizing methodologies that allow for causal inferences; (2) incorporating state-based violent extremism perspectives also in individual-level research; (3) increasing the utilization of big data by interdisciplinary teams; (4) increasing the focus on developmental research to understand early life influences; and (5) initiating more interdisciplinary work at the study level.

This chapter examines the effects that international military interventions and foreign military occupations have on violent extremism with a particular focus on how interventions and occupations foster psychological processes associated with radicalization and patterns of political violence. The chapter begins by providing definitions for the key terms and then surveys the main strands of literature on how international interventions and foreign occupations may provoke violent extremist responses. In particular, the chapter discusses evidence that military interventions and occupations enhance grievances and feelings of national humiliation among affected populations, prompting them to support political violence. International military interventions and occupations can also foster violent extremism by facilitating othering of foreigners, by worsening human rights standards, and by producing a strategic environment conducive to political violence. The chapter also examines how interventions and occupations may foster vicarious radicalization outside of the intervened-in or occupied country, thereby increasing the threat of political violence globally. The discussion of the literature is expanded to acknowledge that certain studies in the literature depict a relationship of greater complexity or nuance. It discusses some key limitations in the literature on international military interventions, foreign occupations, and violent extremism. Finally, it concludes with implications for scholars and practitioners.

One of the rapidly emerging consequences of the climate crisis is the increase in frequency and severity of climate catalyst events, such as hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts, and wildfires. Experts increasingly recognize that these developments are likely to precipitate violent extremism; however, a comprehensive overview of this nexus remains absent to date. Against this background, this chapter presents an in-depth framework for analyzing the intersection between climatic catalyst events and violent extremism from a psychological standpoint. Initially, it explores the manner in which the climate crisis exacerbates risk factors linked to violent extremism on a global scale. These factors include heightening feelings of insignificance, diminishing opportunity costs, triggering mass migration and displacement, and provoking defensive responses in conjunction with the rise of ecofascism. Next, the chapter iterates upon the Climate Change and Violence Model, demonstrating how catalyst events can create a cyclical feedback loop of increasing violence and violence-risk factors. To illustrate the role of the psychological processes and risk factors, the chapter discusses two case studies in which climate shock events contributed to violence and extremism. Finally, potential policy solutions focused on preventing the occurrence of climate-related events and their subsequent escalation into violent extremism are proposed.