Numerous studies have documented the detrimental impact of age-based stereotype threat on older adults' cognitive performance and especially on veridical memory. However, far fewer studies have investigated the impact of ABST on older adults' memory distortion. Here, we review the subset of research examining memory distortion and provide evidence for the role of stereotype threat as a powerful socio-emotional factor that impacts age-related susceptibility to memory distortion. In this review we define memory distortion as errors in memory that are associated (...) with gist-based errors or source misattributions. Whereas, some of the reviewed experiments support the conclusion that ABST should be considered in the context of age-related differences in memory distortion, others reported little or no impact of stereotype threat. These discrepancies suggest that the role of ABST, and socio-emotional processes generally, in age-related changes in memory distortion are less clear. In this review, we argue that ABST does play an important role in age-related changes in memory distortion. We present evidence suggesting that discrepancies in the reviewed literature may be reconciled when evaluated in the context of the leading theories about stereotype threat: the Executive Resource Depletion hypothesis and the Regulatory Focus theory. We also discuss how differences in methodology and participant characteristics can account for a priori contradictory results in the literature. Finally, we propose some recommendations for researchers and practitioners when assessing memory in older adults. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Ethics and values in psychotherapy by Alan C. Tjeltveit . Many psychologists are aware of the ethical and inescapably value-laden nature of psychotherapy . Despite this awareness about values, however, much confusion persists about the nature and management of values in practice. Tjeltveit's text seeks to address such questions among many others. This fine book is one of the first works to comprehensively integrate the research regarding values inescapability with broader ethical theory and philosophy and its potential (...) impact on psychology. In his extensive review, Tjeltveit explores the meaning of "psychotherapist as ethicist," the varied definitions of values, the relationship between science and ethics, the ethical nature of therapy goals and practice, and implications of these issues for public philosophy and professional ethics . Tjeltveit's text is an extremely significant contribution to the discipline, because it is one of the first works to explicitly discuss the value-infused nature of psychotherapy and the consequences that this brings to individual practice, professional standards, and societal expectations. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Arthur Danto has written:I came to view that in writing about beauty as a philosopher, I was addressing the deepest kind of issue there is. Beauty is but one of an immense range of aesthetic qualities, and philosophical aesthetics has been paralyzed by focusing as narrowly on beauty as it has. But beauty is the only one of the aesthetic qualities that is also a virtue, like truth and goodness. It is not simply among the values we live by, but (...) one of the values that defines what a fully human life means.1Because beauty is so important to being human, it is worthwhile to study how people understand their experiences of beauty across the lifespan. How do children frame what beauty is? How do adolescents? How do... (shrink)

Analogical reasoning relies on subprocesses of long-term memory and problem-solving. Stress, with its accompanying hormones dehydroepiandrosterone and cortisol, has been shown to impair memo...

Reviews the book, The psychology of existence: An integrative, clinical perspective by Kirk Schneider and Rollo May . In light of what they see as a growing interest in existential psychology among training clinicians and researchers, Schneider and May have authored a text which introduces the existential movement and outlines clinical applications of existentialism in psychotherapy. The text's most significant contribution is the latter—the presentation of a guiding clinical framework for conducting the "existential- integrative approach" in psychotherapy. While many personality (...) and psychotherapy texts include introductory chapters about existentialism, few discuss how therapy cases are conceptualized and conducted from an existential therapeutic orientation. This text is an important contribution to the clinical psychology training literature. In traditional clinical training programs, existential approaches to psychotherapy are often overlooked, because such approaches are viewed as purely philosophical rather than clinically applicable. Schneider and May challenge this view. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This paper explores naturalism and supernaturalism as modes of disclosure that reveal and conceal different aspects of relationality. Naturalism is presented as a worldview or set of philosophical assumptions that posits an objective world that is separable from persons and discoverable or describable via scientific methods. Because psychotherapy tacitly endorses many naturalistic assumptions, psychotherapy relationships may be limited to an instrumentalist ethic premised upon use-value and manipulability. Given these naturalistic limitations, relationships may require a supernatural component – a component which (...) reaches beyond the naturalistic and into the miraculous. The alternative grounding for this supernatural disclosure is found in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and that of Emmanuel Levinas, the former emphasizing the possibilities inherent in contemplative rather than calculative disclosures, and the latter emphasizing ethical obligation and absolute otherness. A therapeutic case is discussed as an exemplar of both kinds of relational disclosure – that is, naturalistic and supernaturalistic – and the therapeutic and relational consequences of each type of disclosure are explored. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 10, Edition 2, October 2010: 73-85. (shrink)