This article describes a heuristic argument for understanding certain physical systems in terms of properties that resemble the beliefs and goals of folk psychology. The argument rests on very simple assumptions. The core of the argument is that predictions about certain events can legitimately be based on assumptions about later events, resembling Aristotelian ‘final causation’; however, more nuanced causal entities must be introduced into these types of explanation in order for them to remain consistent with a causally local Universe.

In this paper we present a modern version of the classic theory of “ultimate psychological hedonism” . As does the UPH, our two-dimensional model of metatelic orientations also postulates a fundamentally hedonistic motivation for any human action. However, it makes a distinction between “telic” or content-based goals of actions and “metatelic” or emotional reasons for actions. In our view, only the emotional reasons for action, but not the goals of action, conform to the UPH. After outlining our model, we will (...) elucidate the similarities and differences between our model and classic UPH. In this context we will clarify several basic misconceptions regarding classic UPH. In a next step, two major criticisms of the theory of ultimate psychological hedonism will be discussed, that is the statement that the hedonistic principle has no motivating effect at all and the argument that the hedonistic motivation is only one of many motivations of human actions. We believe that both of these arguments can be refuted. Finally, we will discuss the compatibility of our model with evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Psychological momentum (PM) is thought to be a force that influences judgment, emotion, and performance. Based on a review of the extant literature, we elucidate two distinct approaches that researchers have adopted in their study of PM: the input-centered approach and the output-centered approach. Consistent with the input-centered approach, we conceptualize PM as a process whereby temporal and contextual PM-like stimuli (i.e., perceptual velocity, perceptual mass, perceptual historicity, and perceptually interconnected timescales)—initially perceived as an impetus—are extrapolated to imagined future outcomes (...) through mental simulation. In turn, and consistent with the output-centered approach, we posit that mental simulation elicits experiential (e.g., perceptual, cognitive, emotional) and behavioral states that govern goal pursuit, and that the pursuit of goals further influences perceptions of self, environment, and action quality. In all, we suggest that PM is interdependently linked to perceptions and behaviors in the sense that PM both influences and is influenced by changes in self-perceptions, environmental perceptions, and behavior, and we conclude by linking the PM construct to recent work on prospection. (shrink)

Positive Psychological Coaching is receiving increasing attention within the organizational field because of its potential benefits for employees’ development and well-being. The main aim of this study was to test the impact of a Positive Psychological Micro-Coaching program on non-executive workers’ psychological capital, and analyze how goal-related self-efficacy predicts goal attainment during the coaching process. Following a control trial design, 60 non-executive employees from an automotive industry company participated in a Positive Psychological Micro-Coaching program over a period of (...) 5 weeks. The intervention was grounded in the strengths-based approach and focused on setting a specific goal for personal and professional growth. The program consisted of a group session, three individual coaching sessions, and individual inter-session monitoring. Pre, post, and 4-month follow up measurements were taken to assess the impact on the study variables. Our results reveal that psychological capital increased significantly at post and follow-up times compared to baseline levels. In addition, results confirmed that goal-related self-efficacy predicted goal attainment during the micro-coaching process. Practical implications suggest that short-term positive psychological coaching is a valuable method for developing personal resources, such as psychological capital and to facilitate the goal achievement in non-executive employees, in order to reach work-related goals. (shrink)

Duarte et al.'s arguments for increasing political diversity in social psychology are based on mischaracterizations of social psychology as fundamentally flawed in understanding stereotype accuracy and the effects of attitudes on information processing. I correct their misunderstandings while agreeing with their view that political diversity, along with other forms of diversity, stands to benefit social psychology.

Studying social phenomena is often assumed to be inherently different from studying natural science phenomena. In psychology, this assumption has led to a division of the field into social and experimental domains. The same kind of division has carried over into ecological psychology, despite the fact that Gibson clearly intended his theory for both social and natural phenomena. In this paper, we argue that the social/natural science dichotomy can be derived from a distinction between hermeneutics and science that (...) is deeply rooted in the atomistic, structuralist ontological tradition. We show that, from a process-based perspective, the central questions of hermeneutics (action of an individual within a context of possible actions), ecological psychology (behavior of an organism in an ecological niche) and physics (motion of a particle in a field) share a similar structure. Building on these ideas, we propose a common, process-based methodology for psychology that integrates field theory with insights from quantum mechanics to accommodate traditionally problematic concepts in natural science such as teleology and values. To demonstrate the feasibility of this approach, empirical findings on the paradigmatic problem of prospective control (such as gaze control in automobile driving in relation to perceptual tuning) are presented. (shrink)

Drawing from research on ethical leadership, psychological capital, and social learning theory, this study investigated the mediating effects of goal congruence and psychological capital in the link between supervisors’ ethical leadership style and followers’ in-role job performance. Data captured from 171 employees and 24 supervisors showed that ethical leadership has a positive effect on followers’ in-role job performance, yet this effect is explained through the role of psychological capital and follower–leader goal congruence, providing evidence of mediation. These findings (...) have significant implications for research and practice. (shrink)

This volume presents chapters from internationally renowned scholars in the area of goals and social behavior.

Conceptually integrating Selfish Goal Theory with modern evolutionary psychology amplifies theoretical power. Inconsistency, a key principle of Selfish Goal Theory, illustrates this insight. Conflicting goals of seeking sexual variety and successful mate retention furnish one example. Siblings have evolved goals to cooperate and compete, a second example. Integrating Selfish Goal Theory with evolutionary theory can explain much inconsistent goal-directed behavior.

This book provides an argumentation model for means-end reasoning, a distinctive type of reasoning used for problem-solving gand decision-making. Means-end reasoning is modeled as goal-directed argumentation from an agent's goals and known circumstances, and from an action selected as a means, to a decision to carry out the action. Goal-based reasoning for argumentation provides an argumentation model for this kind of reasoning, showing how it is employed in settings of intelligent deliberation where agents try to collectively arrive at (...) a conclusion on what they should do to move forward in a set of circumstances. The book explains how this argumentation model can help build more realistic computational systems of deliberation and decision-making and shows how such systems can be applied to solve problems posed by goal-based reasoning in numerous fields, from social psychology and sociology, to law, political science, anthropology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, and robotics." -- Back cover. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo explore the relationship between adolescents’ social mobility belief and their learning engagement, as well as the mediating effect of achievement goal orientation and the moderating effect of psychological capital.MethodA sample of 895 adolescents from Hunan, Jiangxi, Hainan, Henan, and Guangdong provinces were assessed using the social mobility belief questionnaire, the achievement goal orientation questionnaire, the adolescents’ psychological capital questionnaire, and the adolescents’ learning engagement questionnaire.ResultsFirst, adolescents’ social mobility belief was positively related to their learning engagement ; Second, (...) the two achievement goal orientations-mastery goal orientations and performance goal orientations-had mediating effects between social mobility belief and learning engagement ; Third, the relationship between achievement goal orientation and learning engagement was regulated by psychological capital. Adolescents with high psychological capital had higher learning engagement.ConclusionAdolescents’ social mobility belief can directly affect their learning engagement, and it can also indirectly affect their learning engagement through achievement goal orientation moderated by their level of psychological capital. Our findings highlighted the importance of providing adolescents with guidance in setting up positive social values and definitions of success while stimulating their psychological capital as a part of the teaching process. (shrink)

This is how guidance of behavior to goal grounds and explains cognition and the main forms in which it manages information.

I defend the claim that understanding is the goal of explanation against various persistent criticisms, especially the criticism that understanding is not truth-connected in the appropriate way, and hence is a merely psychological state. Part of the reason why understanding has been dismissed as the goal of explanation, I suggest, is because the psychological dimension of the goal of explanation has itself been almost entirely neglected. In turn, the psychological dimension of understanding—the Aha! experience, the sense that (...) a certain explanation “feels right”, and so on—has been conspicuously overemphasized. I try to correct for both of these exaggerations. Just as the goal of explanation includes a richer psychological—including phenomenological—dimension than is generally acknowledged, so too understanding has a stronger truth connection than is generally acknowledged.Keywords: Understanding; Explanation; Philosophy of science; Epistemology. (shrink)

The goal of an "integral psychology" is to honor and embrace every legitimate aspect of human consciousness under one roof. This book presents one of the first truly integrative models of consciousness, psychology, and therapy.

As the sensitivity to corporate social responsibility continues to grow, the goal of enterprises has expanded beyond the sole pursuit of economic value. Corporate social goal orientation has therefore come to occupy a central position in entrepreneurs’ psychology and the transition away from a market-only economy. This study uses secondary data from 4,288 samples of 725 Chinese-listed companies from 2009 to 2020 to explore the driving factors in social goal orientation based on the characteristics of sample (...) companies and their industry groups from the perspective of stakeholder relationships. The results can be summarized as follows: there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between government stakeholder relationships and social goal orientation, and there is a significant positive relationship between financial stakeholder relationships, market stakeholder relationships, and corporate social goal orientation. The correlation between single-dual stakeholder relationships and social goal orientation is not consistent. In light of the nature of the roles of government and the market, the correlation between the government–market dual relationship and corporate social goal orientation is not significant. However, there is a significant correlation between the finance–government dual stakeholder relationship and social goal orientation; that is, the dual stakeholder relationship maintains the existence of non-institutional capital and corporate financial capital. Moreover, there is no significant correlation between the market–finance dual relationship and corporate social goal orientation, and there is substitutability between market and financial stakeholder relationships. With the deepening of our understanding of CSR, the core goal of enterprises is no longer confined to the pursuit of economic value, and their social goal orientation has come to be regarded as a major driving force in sustainable development. This study enriches the research on the relationship between stakeholder relationships and shows that stakeholder relationships also have important significance to both achieving corporate goals and shaping entrepreneurs’ psychology. (shrink)

In recent years, developmental psychologists have increasingly been interested in various forms of prosocial behavior observed in infants and young children—in particular comforting, sharing, pointing to provide information, and spontaneous instrumental helping. We briefly review several models that have been proposed to explain the psychological mechanisms underpinning these behaviors. Focusing on spontaneous instrumental helping, we home in on models based upon what Paulus :77–81, 2014) has dubbed ‘goal-alignment’, i.e. the idea that the identification of an agent’s goal leads (...) infants to take up that goal as their own. We identify a problem with the most well-known model based upon this idea, namely the ‘goal contagion’ model. The problem arises from the way in which the model specifies the content of the goal which is identified and taken up. We then propose an alternative way of specifying the content of the goal, and use this as a starting point for articulating an alternative model based upon the idea of alignment, namely the ‘goal slippage’ model. By elucidating the difference between goal contagion and goal slippage, we contribute to the articulation of experimental criteria for assessing whether and when the mechanisms specified by these two models are at work. (shrink)

In this commentary, we consider how Balcetis’s proposals may interface with the study of motivation and emotion in lifespan developmental psychology, pointing to open questions regarding the distance perception of long-term chronic goals as well as age-related shifts from informational to emotional goals.

We propose the Selfish Goal model, which holds that a person's behavior is driven by psychological processes called goals that guide his or her behavior, at times in contradictory directions. Goals can operate both consciously and unconsciously, and when activated they can trigger downstream effects on a person's information processing and behavioral possibilities that promote only the attainment of goal end-states (and not necessarily the overall interests of the individual). Hence, goals influence a person as if the goals (...) themselves were selfish and interested only in their own completion. We argue that there is an evolutionary basis to believe that conscious goals evolved from unconscious and selfish forms of pursuit. This theoretical framework predicts the existence of unconscious goal processes capable of guiding behavior in the absence of conscious awareness and control (theautomaticity principle), the ability of the most motivating or active goal to constrain a person's information processing and behavior toward successful completion of that goal (thereconfiguration principle), structural similarities between conscious and unconscious goal pursuit (thesimilarity principle), and goal influences that produce apparent inconsistencies or counterintuitive behaviors in a person's behavior extended over time (theinconsistency principle). Thus, we argue that a person's behaviors are indirectly selected at the goal level but expressed (and comprehended) at the individual level. (shrink)

Ecological Psychology and Enactivism both challenge representationist cognitive science, but the two approaches have only begun to engage in dialogue. Further conceptual clarification is required in which differences are as important as common ground. This paper enters the dialogue by focusing on important differences. After a brief account of the parallel histories of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism, we cover incompatibility between them regarding their theories of sensation and perception. First, we show how and why in ecological theory perception (...) is, crucially, not based on sensation. We elucidate this idea by examining the biological roots of work in the two fields, concentrating on Gibson and Varela and Maturana. We expound an ecological critique of any sensation-based approach to perception by detailing two topics: classic retinal image theories and perception in single-celled organisms. The second main point emphasizes the importance of the idea of organism-environment mutuality and its difference from structural coupling of sensations and motor behavior. We point out how ecological - phenomenological methods of inquiry grow out of mutualism and compare Gibson’s idea of visual kinesthesis to Merleau-Ponty’s idea of the lived body. Third, we conclude that Ecological Psychology and varieties of Enactivism are laying down different paths to pursue related goals. Thus, convergence of Ecological Psychology and Enactivism is not possible given their conflicting assumptions, but cross-fertilization is possible and desirable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:I argue that there are, according to Aristotle, two importantly different kinds of goals or ends in the domain of human agency and that one of these two kinds has been frequently, though not universally, overlooked. Apart from psychological goals, goals that agents adopt as their purposes, there are also, I submit, goals that actions have by being the kinds of actions they are and, in some cases, by occurring in the circumstances in which they do. These latter goals belong (...) to suitable actions whether or not agents adopt them as purposes and whether or not agents are aware of them. There is evidence both in Aristotle's ethical writings and in his discussion of chance and luck in Physics II.4–6 that he recognizes goals of this latter kind. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Investigating Extended Embodiment Using a Computational Model and Human Experimentation” by Yuki Sato, Hiroyuki Iizuka & Takashi Ikegami. Upshot: The target article’s findings on the focus of attention in extending an agent’s body schema are consistent with those in developmental psychology and neuroscience on goal-directed action. The consequences of these findings are that embodiment can be extended in a variety of ways, not all of which require direct physical manipulation.

Goal-setting theory states that challenging, specific, and concrete goals (i.e., subordinate goals) are powerful motivators and boost performance in goal pursuit more than vague or abstract goals (i.e., superordinate goals). Goal-setting theory predominantly focuses on single, short-term goals and less on broad, long-term challenges. This review article extends goal-setting theory and argues that superordinate goals also fulfill a crucial role in motivating behavior, particularly when addressing broad, long-term challenges. The purpose of this article is to show (...) theoretically that people pursue long-term goals more successfully when they focus on subordinate and superordinate goals simultaneously than when they focus on either subordinate or superordinate goals alone. (shrink)

Successful formation of a new venture is not the most critical indicator of the real success of an entrepreneurial venture. Instead, the sustainability of an entrepreneurial venture (i.e., entrepreneurial sustainability) is the most critical but the most difficulty goal. Entrepreneurial sustainability relies largely on positive collective psychology. This article offers systematic and detailed discussion of the effects of psychological capital on the critical elements of entrepreneurship sustainability – not just that on a successful formation of a new venture. (...) The goal is to shed light on potential practical designs and theoretical improvement in the future. (shrink)

In this essay we aim to present some considerations regarding a minimal but concrete notion of agency and goal-directed behavior that are useful for characterizing biological systems at different scales. These considerations are a particular perspective, bringing together concepts from dynamical systems, combinatorial problem-solving, and connectionist learning with an emphasis on the relationship between parts and wholes. This perspective affords some ways to think about agents that are concrete and quantifiable, and relevant to some important biological issues. Instead of (...) advocating for a strict definition of minimally agential characteristics, we focus on how (even for a modest notion of agency) the agency of a system can be more than the sum of the agency of its parts. We quantify this in terms of the problem-solving competency of a system with respect to resolution of the frustrations between its parts. This requires goal-directed behavior in the sense of delayed gratification, i.e., taking dynamical trajectories that forego short-term gains (or sustain short-term stress or frustration) in favor of long-term gains. In order for this competency to belong to the system (rather than to its parts or given by its construction or design), it can involve distributed systemic knowledge that is acquired through experience, i.e., changes in the organization of the relationships among its parts (without presupposing a system-level reward function for such changes). This conception of agency helps us think about the ways in which cells, organisms, and perhaps other biological scales, can be agential (i.e., more agential than their parts) in a quantifiable sense, without denying that the behavior of the whole depends on the behaviors of the parts in their current organization. (shrink)

This article examines neuroleptics in relation to the histories of biopsychiatry and neoliberalism in the United States. Drawing from Foucault's concept of biopower, I contend that neuroleptics are socially constructed as a mechanism to address underlying biological illnesses in order to achieve neoliberal subjectivity for mad/disabled people. I then argue this biopsychiatric and neoliberal construct dominates services with the expressed goal of creating people who self‐govern their own drug consumption. This, however, contrasts with accounts that depict intersubjective balancing acts (...) between treatment providers and mad/disabled people, who must incorporate the various effects of psychoactive drugs beyond measures of rehabilitation. In doing so, I advocate for new lines of psychological inquiry that critically examine the structural determinants of poverty and the underlying constructions of citizenship and wellness. (shrink)

The present article reviews modern research on the psychology of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation determines the offset of emotional responding and is thus distinct from emotional sensitivity, which determines the onset of emotional responding. Among the most viable categories for classifying emotion-regulation strategies are the targets and functions of emotion regulation. The emotion-generating systems that are targeted in emotion regulation include attention, knowledge, and bodily responses. The functions of emotion regulation include satisfying hedonic needs, supporting specific goal pursuits, (...) and facilitating the global personality system. Emotion-regulation strategies are classified in terms of their targets and functions and relevant empirical work is reviewed. Throughout this review, emotion regulation emerges as one of the most far-ranging and influential processes at the interface of cognition and emotion. (shrink)

Recent models of wisdom in philosophy and psychology have converged on conceptualizing this intellectual virtue as involving metacognitive processes that enable us to know how to live well and act morally. However, these models have been critiqued by both philosophers and psychologists on the grounds that their conceptions of wisdom are redundant with other constructs, and so the concept of wisdom should be eliminated. In reply, I defend an account of wisdom that similarly conceptualizes wisdom as involving metacognitive processes, (...) but without being subject to the critique that wisdom is redundant. To isolate what’s unique about wisdom, I examine the self-regulatory processes that are relevant for being effective in striving to achieve our goals and draw further insights from the research on skill acquisition and expertise. This framework reveals that the unique contribution that wisdom can make beyond these other processes is in setting and revising our conceptions of living well and the constitutive virtues, and so the concept of wisdom is not redundant. In addition, this account can help to resolve two other areas of contention in wisdom research, which is accounting for the connection between wisdom and moral motivation, as well as the role of emotion in wisdom. A goal-oriented approach provides insight into factors influencing moral motivation due to distinctions in the ways goals are formulated, and for a better understanding of the connection between emotion and wisdom I endorse enactivist accounts that maintain that emotions are embodied appraisals connected to our deeply held cares and values. (shrink)

This book offers an analysis of experimental psychology that is embedded in a general understanding of human behavior. It provides methodological self-awareness for researchers who study and use the experimental method in psychology. The book critically reviews key research areas, examining their scope, limits, ambiguities, and implicit theoretical commitments. Topics featured in this text include: Methods of critique in experimental research Goal hierarchies and organization of a task Rule-following and rule-breaking behavior Sense of agency Free-choice tasks Mind (...) wandering Experimental Psychology and Human Agency will be of interest to researchers and undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, theoretical psychology, and critical psychology, as well as various philosophical disciplines. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most elusive thinkers in the philosophical tradition. His highly unusual style and insistence on what remains hidden or unsaid in his writing make pinning him to a particular position tricky. Nonetheless, certain readings of his work have become standard and influential. In this major new interpretation of Nietzsche’s work, Robert B. Pippin challenges various traditional views of Nietzsche, taking him at his word when he says that his writing can best be understood as a (...) kind of psychology. Pippin traces this idea of Nietzsche as a psychologist to his admiration for the French moralists: La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Stendhal, and especially Montaigne. In distinction from philosophers, Pippin shows, these writers avoided grand metaphysical theories in favor of reflections on life as lived and experienced. Aligning himself with this project, Nietzsche sought to make psychology “the queen of the sciences” and the “path to the fundamental problems.” Pippin contends that Nietzsche’s singular prose was an essential part of this goal, and so he organizes the book around four of Nietzsche’s most important images and metaphors: that truth could be a woman, that a science could be gay, that God could have died, and that an agent is as much one with his act as lightning is with its flash. Expanded from a series of lectures Pippin delivered at the Collège de France, _Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy_ offers a brilliant, novel, and accessible reading of this seminal thinker. (shrink)

This book brings together a group of scholars from around the world who view psychology as the science of human ways of being. Being refers to the process of existing - through construction of the human world - here, rather than to an ontological state. This collection includes work that has the goal to establish the newly developed area of cultural psychology as the science of specifically human ways of existence. It comes as a next step after (...) the "behaviorist turn" that has dominated psychology over most of the 20th century, and like its successor in the form of "cognitivism", kept psychology away from addressing issues of specifically human ways of relating with their worlds. Such linking takes place through intentional human actions: through the creation of complex tools for living, entertainment, and work. Human beings construct tools to make other tools. Human beings invent religious systems, notions of economic rationality and legal systems; they enter into aesthetic enjoyment of various aspects of life in art, music, and literature; they have the capability of inventing national identities that can be summoned to legitimate one's killing of one's neighbors, or being killed oneself. The contributions to this volume focus on the central goal of demonstrating that psychology as a science needs to start from the phenomena of higher psychological functions, and then look at how their lower counterparts are re-organized from above. That kind of investigation is inevitably interdisciplinary - it links psychology with anthropology, philosophy, sociology, history, and developmental biology. Various contributions to this volume are based on the work of Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, Henri Bergson, and on traditions of Ganzheitspsychologie and Gestalt psychology. Psychology as the Science of Human Being is a valuable resource to psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, biologists, and anthropologists alike. (shrink)

Teaching research methods is especially challenging because we not only wish to convey formal knowledge and encourage critical thinking, as with any course, but also to enable our students dream up meaningful research projects, translate them into logical steps, conduct the research in a professional manner, analyze the data, and write up the project in APA style. We also wish to spark interest in the topics of research papers, and in the intellectual challenge of creating a research report, but we (...) have learned just how difficult these goals can be from teaching undergraduates and from serving as journal reviewers: many submissions contain flaws such as elementary errors of logic (e.g., using a null control condition instead of a placebo or dummy treatment), tangled statistics, a lack of graphs, and ungrammatical, unclear writing that violates APA rules. Yet these manuscripts are written by university faculty, often with doctorates and years of experience. Even published papers may contain egregious faults (Standing & McKelvie, 1986). And although we have both published widely, we still hone our skills. It requires optimism to expect that a typical undergraduate will do better, on the basis of just a year or two of studies in psychology. In this paper, we describe a systematic set of methodology courses and two specific practices that we think can help. Methodology Courses as the Backbone of our Psychology Program How can methodology courses promote undergraduate involvem... (shrink)

This study aimed to capture how the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis disrupted and affected individuals’ goal pursuits and self-efficacy beliefs early during the lockdown phase of COVID-19. Participants impacted by lockdown regulations accessed an online questionnaire during a 10-day window from the end of March to early April 2020 and reported a significant personal goal toward which they had been working, and then completed quantitative and qualitative survey items tapping self-efficacy beliefs for goal achievement, subjective caring about (...) the goal during disrupted world events, and current pursuit or abandonment of the goal. The findings from both quantitative and qualitative measures demonstrated a significant drop in self-efficacy beliefs from before to during the pandemic with a large effect based on whether people thought they could still achieve their goal under current conditions. Over two-thirds of the sample was unsure or did not believe they could still carry out their goal, and over a quarter either abandoned or were uncertain they could pursue the goal. Despite this, people continued to care about their goals. Reasons for abandonment and strategies for coping with goals within the lockdown and beyond are discussed. (shrink)

In this response to the commentary by Michael and Christensen, we first explain how minimal mindreading is compatible with the development of increasingly sophisticated mindreading behaviours that involve both executive functions and general knowledge, and then sketch one approach to a minimal account of goal ascription.

The growth of Sweden’s urban population necessitates new approaches for increasing the sustainability and energy efficiency of multifamily buildings. The development of such approaches will require a holistic and integrated understanding of the factors driving the decision making of both professionals who design buildings and end-users who live in them. This paper, therefore, uses the goal framing theory to determine which aspects of multifamily buildings are considered important by these two groups of actors. An empirical study based on semi-structured (...) interviews with professionals involved in building design and development was conducted to identify goals affecting the choices made during building design and development. In parallel, a questionnaire survey of building end-users was conducted to determine which factors guided their choice of dwelling. It was found that professionals’ design choices were primarily governed by normative goals relating to environmental benefits but were also influenced by the other goals. These included gain goals relating to budgetary constraints and keeping the building’s operational and maintenance costs low. Hedonic goals were also important; some design choices were made with the aim of providing pleasant, comfortable, and convenient living environments, or of giving the buildings a distinct aesthetic or some other special features. By comparing the professionals’ responses to the end-user surveys, it was found that the two groups had similar views concerning gain goals; both considered it important for apartments to be affordable and easy to maintain. However, their views on hedonic and normative goals differed markedly. The professionals sought to strike an optimal balance between different related aspects, whereas end-users placed greater importance on aspects relating to hedonic and gain goals when choosing dwellings. The findings provide a basis for constructive discussions on building design and development, and the scope for creating buildings that encourage end-users to adopt sustainable living practices while also satisfying their needs and preferences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychological CourageDaniel Putman (bio)AbstractBeginning with Aristotle philosophers have analyzed physical courage and moral courage in great detail. However, philosophy has never addressed the type of courage involved in facing the fears generated by our habits and emotions. This essay introduces the concept of psychological courage and argues that it deserves to be recognized in ethics as a form of courage. I examine three broad areas of psychological problems: destructive (...) habits; irrational anxieties; and psychological servitude in which one individual emotionally controls another. Psychological courage is the strength to confront and work through these problems. Such courage involves facing our deep-seated fear of psychological instability. I conclude that the development of psychological courage is essential to the well-being of many people.Keywordscourage, Aristotle, habits, dependency, rashness, cowardice, anxiety disorders, patienceThe virtue of courage exhibits different forms in human life. Types of courage can be broadly differentiated in terms of the fear which must be faced and the goal to be attained. Two forms of courage have been discussed at some length in the history of ethics. “Physical courage” is characterized by overcoming a fear of death or physical harm. The goals to be achieved by its exercise are traditionally defined by society or by the requirements of survival. The paradigmatic example is Aristotle’s (1987) brave soldier who faces death to defend his city (1115a25–35). Another example would be bravely defending self and family against a threat from nature such as a flood or dangerous carnivore. The second form, “moral courage,” also has some allusions in Aristotle (1115a12–13; 1115b1–2), but Plato’s portrayal of Socrates is in many ways the archetype for moral courage in Western philosophy. While Socrates is also said to have displayed physical courage in defending Athens, it is his fearlessness in defending a deeply held greater moral good against society which has inspired untold numbers of Plato’s readers, from the Stoics to today’s students. 1 In moral courage the major fear is loss of ethical integrity or authenticity, but moral courage is also tied to dealing with social disapproval (Martin 1986, ch. 4; Walton 1986). The person confronting her peer group over a racist joke displays moral courage. In acting courageously the individual maintains moral integrity while at the same time overcoming the fear of being rejected by friends. Other examples abound: the whistle-blower facing ostracism from colleagues for calling attention to injustice in the workplace, or the Quaker or Buddhist protesting against a manufacturer of armaments. Examples of physical and moral courage often overlap. Gandhi (as well as Socrates) exhibited moral courage while facing death, and a soldier in battle may have to deal with peer rejection of his heroic actions. However, the distinction, while imprecise, does speak usefully to quite different forms of courageous experience. [End Page 1]In this paper I want to introduce a third form of courage almost never discussed in the literature. Best called “psychological courage,” it is a form of the virtue which millions of human beings have to possess and exercise on a regular basis. The fear to be faced is not usually that of physical harm, nor is it fear of social ostracism. Nor is loss of moral integrity a major concern. The fear centers around a loss of psychological stability. I speak of the courage it takes to face our irrational fears and anxieties, those passions which, in Spinoza’s terms, hold us in bondage. These can range from habits and compulsions to phobias. Aristotle would have classified many of these under lack of temperance. A drinking habit or an irrational fear of open spaces reflects a lack of proper balance regarding the pleasures of life. But facing and working through these habits or anxieties can involve courage for several reasons. First, to admit the problem is to face the possibility of being stigmatized by society. In this sense psychological courage has some similarities to moral courage. Second, a great deal of pain, physical and psychological, can be involved in confronting the anxiety or changing the habit, and the individual knows this beforehand. Third, and most significant to this form of courage, the stability... (shrink)