Introduction
Rights are ubiquitous within our understanding of what can and should be expected of individuals, collectives, and institutions. Rights are a set of principles and entitlements that form the basis of many ethical and moral dilemmas that pervade the social debates of our times. Whether or not an individual is permitted to vote, a couple is allowed to marry, a group is able to organize, a state is allowed to declare war, and countless other entitlements are couched in a language of rights that influences our perceptions and behaviors regarding what is justified, permissible, and valued. Furthermore, embedded within rights discourses are notions of who or what does or should have power to decide and act, thus making the topic of rights particularly relevant to the field of critical psychology.
Definition
The concept of rights is particularly relevant to our understanding of how individuals and groups relate to the abounding institutions and cultural values that make up a...
References
Fine, M., Freudenberg, N., Payne, Y., Perkins, T., Smith, K., & Wanzer, K. (2003). “Anything can happen with police around”: Urban youth evaluate strategies of surveillance in public places. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 141–158.
Grabe, S. (2010). Women’s human rights and empowerment in a transnational, globalized context: What’s Psychology got to do with it? In M. A. Paludi (Ed.), Feminism and women’s rights worldwide (pp. 17–46). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers/Greenwood Publishing Group.
Iuculano, J., & Burkum, K. (1996). The humanism of Sartre: Toward a psychology of dignity. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 16, 19–29.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system justification theory. Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25, 881–918.
Limbert, W. M., & Bullock, H. E. (2005). ‘Playing the fool’: US welfare policy from a critical perspective. Feminism & Psychology, 15, 253–274.
Moghaddam, F. M., & Lvina, E. (2002). Toward a psychology of societal change and stability: The case of human rights and duties. International Journal of Group Tensions, 31, 31–51.
Stetsenko, A. (2012). Personhood. An activist project of historical becoming through collaborative pursuits of social transformation. New Ideas in Psychology, 30, 144–153.
Turner, J. C., & Oakes, P. J. (1986). The significance of the social identity concept for social psychology with reference to individualism, interactionism and social influence. British Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 237–252.
Wenar, L. (2011). Rights. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2011 ed.). Stanford, California USA: Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/rights/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Dutt, A., Grabe, S. (2014). Rights, Overview. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_620
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_620
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5582-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5583-7
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Sciences