204 Christopher R. Bell
traits may be exaggerations, neoliberal social conditions have profoundly
shaped mental and behavioral dispositions in decidedly anti-social ways.
Verhaeghe makes a subtler point, however, when referencing research
conducted by Frans de Waal on primate empathy. De Waal has noted that
context is crucial for the evocation of empathic behavior among
primates—apes are happy to engage in altruistic behavior as long as they
perceive fundamental fairness, but are less likely to behave altruistically if
they perceive that the experimental set-up is unfair. Interpreting De Waal’s
research, Verhaeghe (2014) underscores:
Our closest relatives are familiar with Do ut des, ‘I give that you
might give’, and with ‘an eye for an eye’. In both cases, the social
organization or lack of it, in combination with visual contact, will
stimulate or inhibit behavior in accordance with these principles. In other
words, primates are not essentially good or evil; circumstances steer
behavior. (p. 94)The Discursive Self: From Personality to Subjectivity
Similar to Teo’s focus on subjectivity as an alternative to personality,
Peter Branney (2008) argues that the concept of subjectivity should replace
that of personality when considering the centrality of language and culture
to human activity. Regarding a proposed shift from the concept of
personality to subjectivity, Branney (2008) states:
The discursive turn helped change the subject of, and the subjectivity
(re)produced by, mainstream social psychology by focusing on language.
Broadly, the focus was on what we do with language and what language
does to us. The construction of subjectivity is one of the things we can do
with language but, as socio-cultural phenomena beyond the control of any
one person, language limits the possibilities open to us. As such,
‘subjectivity’ replaces personality as the key theoretical construct. (p.
575)