In this paper I argue that the lack of interest, among analytic moral philosophers, in the contingencies of our moral present, produces an impoverished moral philosophy, unable to address the moral problems and quandaries of ordinary people. What is needed to remedy this is a broadening of the scope of the moral philosopher’s thought to include a rich attention to moral phenomena of the present. One such phenomenon, attended to by sociologists and critical journalists over the past few decades, is (...) the contemporary proliferating genre of psychologically oriented self-help literature. I display a range of sociological responses to self-help in order to point out aspects of morality that are made visible in these discussions, whereas they often remain invisible in standard moral philosophy. The aim is not to suggest a specific methodology for including such material into philosophical discussions, but rather to urge philosophers to reconsider the range of materials they attend to in their work, in order to produce a more lively engagement with and understanding of contemporary morality. (shrink)

Over the past ten to fifteen years, medical interventions, therapeutic approaches and scientific studies involving mindfulness meditation have gained traction in areas such as clinical psychology, psychotherapy, and neuroscience. Simultaneously, mindfulness has had a very strong public appeal. This article examines some of the ways in which the medical and scientific meaning of mindfulness is communicated in public and to the public. In particular, it shows how experts in the field of mindfulness neuroscience seek to communicate to the public (...) at large the imperative of brain fitness for the promotion of health, wellbeing and happiness. The study identifies claims being made in popular outlets that, by and large, bypass traditional mass media, such as self-help books, websites and online videos. By treating this material as a form of personalized science communication, this article contributes to the body of literature that understands science communication as a continuum and the boundary between science and popularized science as the outcome of human negotiations. The study finds that processes of personalization help to build bridges between scientific findings and their supposed application, that they infuse science with subjective meaning, and turn expert communication with the public into a moral vocation. (shrink)

The genre of advice to parents about children’s sleep proliferated between the mid-1980s and the beginning of the twenty-first century. This article reads that genre against itself, as symptomatic of larger political trends—the end of the privilege of the normative mid-century nuclear family and the advent of neoliberal ideology and political economy. Specifically, it argues that this wave of advice reflects an ambivalence about the autonomous individual within neoliberalism versus the need for attachment and the dependence of kinship. Returning to (...) Jessica Benjamin’s object-relations feminism, it shows how the oscillation between methods of sleep training that stress independent sleeping against those that align with attachment parenting reveal the same subject-object relations of power (with concomitant gender roles) that Benjamin outlined as central to domination. By embedding this analysis in its contemporary material conditions of class, race, and gender, the article argues that sleep practices try—and must necessarily fail—to create workers and family members who are both entirely autonomous and mutually supportive. It combines examination of the psychodynamics of family relationships as mutually informed by neoliberal rationality and an established critique of the politics of intensive mothering, with recognition of a post-2008 anxiety distinctive of millennial parenting, to show how children’s sleep has become a part of (gendered) work—a technology of the self—that carries the burden of forming the future citizen worker. (shrink)

This book provides a philosophical assessment of the idea of personhood advanced in popular self-help literature. It also traces, within academic philosophy and philosophical scholarship, a self-help culture where the self is brought forth as an object of improvement and a key to meaning, progress and profundity. Unlike other academic treatments of the topic of self-help, this book is not primarily concerned with providing a critique of popular self-help and self-transformative (...) practices. Rather, it is concerned with how they work to shape contemporary forms and ideals of moral personhood and are conductive to moral renegotiation and change. The book consists of two parts with somewhat different argumentative strategies. Part 1 consists of an overview and reassessment of popular self-help literature and its sociological and journalistic critics, written from a moral philosophical perspective. Part 2 opens with discussion of the current attraction, among a range of philosophers, to self-transformative themes. The chapters assess the strand of self-transformative philosophy found in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, Pierre Hadot, Stanley Cavell and Iris Murdoch. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of the theme of social change and moral renegotiation in contemporary societies, which is a central but underestimated undercurrent in discussions on contemporary self-transformative practices. The book's dual perspective-on both popular self-help and self-transformative currents in philosophy-enables a cultural and moral philosophical analysis of contemporary ethical ideals of personhood, as well as reflection on the literatures available for its development. The Making of the Good Person will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in moral philosophy, history of philosophy, psychology, sociology and literary studies. (shrink)

The implementation of online technologies to promote wellbeing is increasingly becoming a worldwide priority. This study includes secondary analyses of data and examined drop-out rates in an online guided self-help intervention for patients with anorexia nervosa. Specifically, rates of drop-out at end of treatment (i.e. six-week assessment), as well as intervention adherence (minimum of four of six online guided sessions) and differences between completers and drop-outs were examined. Motivation to change and associated patient variables were assessed as predictors (...) of drop-out using structural equation modelling. Ninety-nine patients were randomised to the intervention arm of the trial. Data were available for 82 individuals, 67 of whom completed the six-week assessment and attended a minimum of four online sessions. No significant differences were found between completers and drop-outs at baseline. At the end of the first week of participation, drop-outs from the six-week assessment or the intervention reported less satisfaction with their work with the mentor delivering online guidance. Greater confidence in own ability to change and higher controlled motivation (willingness to change due to pressure from others) predicted lower drop-out rates from the six-week assessment. Stronger alliance with the therapist at the treatment centre and lower psychological distress were associated with greater autonomous motivation (self-directed motivation) and importance and ability to change. Data demonstrate that a novel online guided self-help intervention for patients with anorexia nervosa is feasible. Early satisfaction with the program and external pressure to change have a protective role against drop-out rates. (shrink)

This essay explores the life and teachings of Herbert Sutcliffe, a religious leader born in England and educated in Australia, where he earned a doctorate in psychology, and the United States, where he earned a doctorate of divinity from a New Thought seminary. Combining the two, he founded schools of Radiant Living in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, in that order. While he did not write a utopia or found an intentional (...) community, he was deeply involved in utopian movements in New Zealand, where some of his followers still live, and taught a form of self-help that he believed, if spread widely enough, would transform the world. (shrink)

This essay explores the life and teachings of Herbert Sutcliffe, a religious leader born in England and educated in Australia, where he earned a doctorate in psychology, and the United States, where he earned a doctorate of divinity from a New Thought seminary. Combining the two, he founded schools of Radiant Living in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, in that order. While he did not write a utopia or found an intentional (...) community, he was deeply involved in utopian movements in New Zealand, where some of his followers still live, and taught a form of self-help that he believed, if spread widely enough, would transform the world. (shrink)

Is it ethical to deceive the individuals who participate in psychological experiments for methodological reasons? We argue against an absolute ban on the use of deception in psychological research. The potential benefits of many psychological experiments involving deception consist in allowing individuals and society to gain morally significant self-knowledge that they could not otherwise gain. Research participants gain individual self-knowledge which can help them improve their autonomous decision-making. The community gains collective self-knowledge that, once shared, can (...) play a role in shaping education, informing policies and in general creating a more efficient and just society. (shrink)

Turning the techniques we use to understand other people onto ourselves can provide an insight into the types of self-knowledge that may be possible for us. Adopting Pluralistic Folk Psychology, according to which we understand others not primarily by thinking about invisible beliefs and desires that cause behavior, but instead by modeling others as people - with rich characters, relationships, past histories, cultural embeddedness, personality traits, and so forth. A preliminary investigation shows that we understand ourselves at least (...) in terms of our phenomenal states, informational states, perceptual states, traits, desires, and beliefs. I then appeal to empirical research to examine the accuracy of our sense of self-understanding in these ways, and argue that these are often non-veridical. Moreover, in our folk practices, we do not take our statements of self-understanding as infallible, but we allow others to help us see ourselves. While there is room for some improvement in our acurarcy, I conclude.. (shrink)

Recent research in the humanities and social sciences suggests that individuals who understand themselves as belonging to something greater than the self--a family, community, or religious or spiritual group--often feel happier, have a deeper sense of purpose or meaning in their lives, and have overall better life outcomes than those who do not. Some positive and personality psychologists have labeled this location of the self within a broader perspective "self-transcendence." This book presents and integrates new, interdisciplinary research (...) into virtue, happiness, and the meaning of life by re-orienting these discussions around the concept of self-transcendence. The essays are organized around three broad themes connected to self-transcendence. First, they investigate how self-transcendence helps us to understand aspects of the moral life as it is studied within psychology, including the development of wisdom, the practice of moral praise, and psychological well-being. Second, they explore how self-transcendence is linked to virtue in different religious and spiritual traditions including Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Finally, they ask how self-transcendence can help us theorize about Aristotelean and Thomist conceptions of virtue, like hope and piety, and how this helps us to re-conceptualize happiness and meaning in life. (shrink)

Abstract. Our human condition is often defined in terms of human fallibility; we are human specifically because we fail to live up to our own expectations. This paper explores various conceptions of one form of human fallibility: self-control failure. Self-control failure is examined through two conceptualizations, with each conceptualization observed through a corresponding theological and psychological lens: first, as the result of a divided, conflicted humanity, as understood by the Catholic Doctrine of Original Sin and psychological Dual-Process Theories (...) of Cognition; and second, as the result of limited goal perception, as understood by Islamic conceptions of human memory and psychological Construal Level Theory. A concluding discussion considers two broader implications of the preceding analysis: first, that an appropriate understanding of human fallibility can help us to mitigate its effects, and second, that a conversation regarding overlapping concepts across academic disciplines and religious traditions can enrich understanding of said concepts. (shrink)

Loneliness is often described as an experience that is about the absence of other people. But loneliness also has an important self-directed aspect: it is oneself one experiences as lonely. I begin by taking it that what the lonely person experiences as absent are not simply other people but rather certain kinds of social relationships with them. Loneliness then involves a disappointed self-relation, a form of estrangement from oneself. I substantiate this view by appeal to psychological model theory. (...) Social agents operate with triadic models of their environments that they themselves, together with the other person and the environment, help constitute. Social models are formed on the basis of intersubjective interaction and enable the social agent to contribute to these interactions. Conceptually more sophisticated versions of social models are at play in the conduct of complex social relationships like friendships or partnerships. Participants in these relationships regulate their social activities by applying the model to concrete situations and then acting so as to adjust the social situation to the model they entertain of it. The self thus features twice in the social agent’s experience, as a participant in the interaction and as an observing and regulating perceiver. Loneliness is the result of one way in which social reality can fail to be in tune with the model the person has of it. It involves a discrepancy between the model of her social life, including her own role in it, and how she perceives that social life to be. (shrink)

The psychological impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on college students is an important topic. With the entry of the post-epidemic era, how universities can better improve students’ psychological resilience in teaching is the research topic of this article. In the form of a questionnaire survey, some entrepreneurial college students investigated the loneliness and psychological resilience of college students after the outbreak of the epidemic and explored the role of self-efficacy in it. The data is collected online through cooperation with (...) an entrepreneurial event, and the participating students are asked for background information such as colleges, grade, and majors. After collecting this information, they answered a series of simplified scale questions about loneliness, self-efficacy, and psychological resilience. In the end, a total of 200 questionnaires from different universities were collected, and the structural equation model was used to explore the role of self-efficacy. The results show that: loneliness has a significant negative effect on Self-efficacy, β = -0.292, p < 0.001; Self-efficacy has a significant positive effect on psychological resilience, β = 0.556, p < 0.0 01; loneliness has a significant negative effect on psychological resilience, β = -0.244, p < 0.01. Self-Efficacy has a significant intermediate effect in loneliness and psychological resilience, with an effective value of -0.111 and p < 0.01. The results show that this exploratory survey finds it important to provide targeted personal self-efficacy improvement activities for college students with a strong sense of loneliness and to combine school and family education organically to help college students form a healthy and upward mentality to better cope with the unknown and troubles caused by the epidemic, which will help improve the psychological resilience of college students in the epidemic. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to examine the role of self-esteem in resisting the influence of materialistic goals of four social role models in adolescents. Previous studies showed a negative correlation between the psychological health of teens and striving for materialistic goals, one of the main sources is the social modeling of materialism. Two studies were carried out. The first, correlational study, was conducted on target teens and their mothers, fathers, and peers of their choice. It examined if (...) self-esteem is a moderator of the relationship between the materialism of social role models and the materialism of teens. The second, experimental study, was conducted on target teens only. It examined how boosting the self-esteem of teens and activating materialism of social role models may affect the materialism of teens. Study 1 showed a significant interaction effect of self-esteem and the materialism of peers on the materialism of teens. The interaction effects of self-esteem and other role models were not significant. Study 2 showed that elevated self-esteem lowered the influence of the materialism of peers on the materialism of teens. The results were not significant when other role models were analyzed. The results obtained in the presented studies indicate that the self-esteem of teens may have an important role in resisting the influence of materialism role models of peers. Practical implications of the studies for the psychological health of teens are also discussed. (shrink)

A summary of topics and theoretical approaches to dynamical systems and psychology. Includes chapters on physical systems, self-organization, state space and dimensionality, networks, neurodynamics, fractals and how such concepts help to explain cognition and the mind.

Psychologists and philosophers have recently argued that our concepts of ‘person’ or ‘self’ are plural. Some have argued that we should also adopt a corresponding pluralism about the metaphysics of the self. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I sketch and motivate an approach to personal identity that supports the inference from facts about how we think about the self to facts about the nature of the self. On the proposed view, the self-concept (...) partly determines the nature of the self. This approach provides new justification for the recent empirical turn in the philosophy of personal identity. Second, I argue that closer examination reveals that the empirical evidence does not in fact support pluralism about the self. Instead, the evidence points toward a model of the self-concept as a complex web of attitudes that is disposed toward integration and unity. I ultimately suggest that this unifying disposition of the self-concept helps ground the existence of a singular self. (shrink)

Groups need contributions that are personally costly to their members. Such cooperation is only adaptive when others cooperate as well, as unconditional cooperation may incur high costs to the individual. We argue that individuals can useWe-if-then plans (collective implementation intentions, cIIs) to regulate their group-directed behavior strategically, helping them to cooperate selectively with group members in the situation planned for. In line with this prediction, a cII to consider group earnings increased cooperative decisions in a prisoners’ dilemma game when playing (...) against another group member but not when playing against a stranger (i.e., non-group member). Moreover, cIIs to cooperate in the prisoners’ dilemma game did not increase cooperation in a structurally similar investment game that participants had not planned for. We discuss the role of collective planning in solving social dilemmas. (shrink)

Modernist philosophy and psychology have pursued a variety of methods and models for understanding the universal inclination of human persons toward moral self-deception. We tend, as the Scriptures reveal and as recent empirical studies have confirmed, to think more highly of ourselves and our personal moral caliber than we ought. Whereas, Freud, Sartre, and others have offered solutions to the “paradox” of self-deception—that is, how one can be both deceiver and deceived—their solutions ultimately fall short in terms (...) of both coherence and explanatory power. From a Christian perspective, secular frameworks are bound to falter because they do not account for humanity’s status as fallen and sinful before a holy God. The gospel of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, offers means not only of understanding, but overcoming, moral self-deception. Historically, no movement of Christian spirituality has been more rigorously skeptical of the human ability to “know thyself” truly than the Puritans. This analysis of Puritan pastoral theology provides a helpful lens through which to view, and undermine, the deceitfulness of the human heart. (shrink)

Solomon’s paradox of wise reasoning, in which performance of wisdom differs when reasoning on an issue in one’s own life vs. another’s life, has been supported by robust evidence. However, the underlying psychological mechanism remains unclear. This asymmetry of wise reasoning may be explained by the different mindsets of self-transcendence when people reason about various conflicts, and mood should play a fundamental role. To explore this issue, three hundred ninety-nine participants were recruited to test a hypothesized model. The results (...) supported the effect of Solomon’s paradox—that is, participants endorsed wise-reasoning strategies more strongly when resolving others’ social conflicts than their own. Further mediation analysis showed that the sequential mediation model was supported. Solomon’s paradox can be explained by the difference in positive affect and self-transcendence when reasoning about the two conflicts. This study directly verifies the mediating role of self-transcendence in Solomon’s paradox. At the same time, reasoning about personal affairs reduces individuals’ self-transcendence mindset, and positive affect can explain the differences. These results are helpful for understanding and effectively avoiding Solomon’s wisdom dilemma. (shrink)

This study statistically analyzed survey data to examine the relationship between fulfillment of psychological needs of 223 Chinese sojourners in the United States and their online self-presentation strategies on Chinese and American social media. The results showed that the combined use of proactive and defensive self-presentation strategies on Chinese social media instead of American social media were more effective to fulfill the sojourners’ need for autonomy. Moreover, presentation strategies that helped to meet the sojourners’ need for relatedness were (...) significantly different between Chinese and American social media. Specifically, a proactive strategy was more effective to meet sojourners’ need for relatedness on Chinese social media, while a defensive strategy was more effective to fulfill their need for relatedness on American social media. (shrink)

When faced with intertemporal choices, which have consequences that unfold over time, we often discount the future, preferring smaller immediate rewards often at the expense of long-term benefits. How psychologically connected one feels to one’s future self-influences such temporal discounting. Psychological connectedness consists in sharing psychological properties with past or future selves, but connectedness comes in degrees. If one feels that one is not psychologically connected to one’s future self, one views that self like a different person (...) and is less likely to wait for the future reward. Increasing perceived psychological connectedness to one’s future self may lead to more far-sighted decisions. Episodic prospection may help in this regard. Episodic prospection is our ability to ‘pre-experience’ the future by mentally simulating it, drawing on information from episodic memory and other sources. Episodic memory and prospection are thought to involve a special form of consciousness, which underpins the capacity to appreciate the connection between one’s past, present, and future selves. Simulating the future self through prospection may increase felt psychological connectedness and support future-oriented decision-making. Yet this is where a puzzle arises. The imagery of episodic memory and prospection is perspectival: often one views the visualised scenario from a detached perspective, seeing oneself from-the-outside as if viewing another person. The aim of this paper is to characterise how the perspectival imagery of prospection relates to psychological connectedness, and to show that even though such imagery involves a detached perspective it can still be used to help reward one’s future self. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers have recently argued that our concepts of ‘person’ or ‘self’ are plural. Some have argued that we should also adopt a corresponding pluralism about the metaphysics of the self. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I sketch and motivate an approach to personal identity that supports the inference from facts about how we think about the self to facts about the nature of the self. On the proposed view, the self-concept (...) partly determines the nature of the self. This approach provides new justification for the recent empirical turn in the philosophy of personal identity. Second, I argue that closer examination reveals that the empirical evidence does not in fact support pluralism about the self. Instead, the evidence points toward a model of the self-concept as a complex web of attitudes that is disposed toward integration and unity. I ultimately suggest that this unifying disposition of the self-concept helps ground the existence of a singular self. (shrink)

Positive Psychology has turned its attention to the study of emotions in a scientific and rigorous way. Particularly, to how emotions influence people’s health, performance, or their overall life satisfaction. Within this trend, Flow theory has established a theoretical framework that helps to promote the Flow experience. Flow state, or optimal experience, is a mental state of high concentration and enjoyment that, due to its characteristics, has been considered desirable for the development of the performing activity of performing musicians. (...) Musicians are a population prone to health problems, both psychological and physical, owing to different stressors of their training and professional activity. One of the most common problems is Musical Performance Anxiety. In this investigation, an electronic intervention program was carried out for the development of psychological self-regulation skills whose main objective was to trigger the Flow response in performing musicians and the coping mechanism for Musical Performance Anxiety. A quasi-experimental design was used with a control group in which pre- and post-measures of Flow State, Musical Performance Anxiety and, also, Social Skills were taken. Sixty-two performing musicians from different music colleges in Spain participated in the program. Results indicated that the intervention significantly improved Flow State, and Sense of Control, and decreased Music Performance Anxiety, and self-consciousness of the participants in the EG but not CG. The changes in the EG after the program showed the inverse relationship between Flow and Anxiety. Two important theoretical factors of both variables, such as worry and the feeling of lack of control, could be involved. The results are under discussion and future lines of research are proposed. (shrink)

The language of self‐belief, including terms like shyness and diffidence, is complex and puzzling. The idea of self‐esteem in particular, which has been given fresh currency by recent interest in ‘personalised learning’, continues to create problems. I argue first that we need a ‘thicker’ and more subtle moral psychology of self‐belief; and, secondly, that there is a radical instability in the ideas and concepts in this area, an instability to which justice needs to be done. I (...) suggest that aspects of deconstruction are helpful here, and offer a deconstructive reading of Kipling's poem, If—, in order to illustrate the power of literature and a certain kind of philosophy to destabilise and resist closure. (shrink)

The language of self-belief, including terms like shyness and diffidence, is complex and puzzling. The idea of self-esteem in particular, which has been given fresh currency by recent interest in ‘personalised learning’, continues to create problems. I argue first that we need a ‘thicker’ and more subtle moral psychology of self-belief; and, secondly, that there is a radical instability in the ideas and concepts in this area, an instability to which justice needs to be done. I (...) suggest that aspects of deconstruction are helpful here, and offer a deconstructive reading of Kipling’s poem, If—, in order to illustrate the power of literature and a certain kind of philosophy to destabilise and resist closure. (shrink)

In recent years, the theoretical work of Gilligan in women's psychological development has led to the development of the concept of moral orientation or moral voice in contrast to the concept of moral reasoning or moral judgment developed by Kohlberg. These concepts have been of particular interest in gender studies, especially as applied to adolescence. These concepts of moral orientation and moral reasoning are being increasingly employed in healthcare ethics studies in a wide variety of settings. The recent work has (...) included studies of physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, social workers, teachers of medical ethics, and hospital ethics committees. However, the study of moral development in healthcare providers has been hampered because collecting the necessary data from healthcare workers has been labor intensive and extremely time consuming. More efficient methods are needed. (shrink)

In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 schools around the world have been closed to protect against the spread of coronavirus. In several countries, homeschooling has been introduced to replace classroom schooling. With a focus on individual differences, the present study examined 138 schoolers regarding their self-control and boredom proneness. The results showed that both traits were important in predicting adherence to homeschooling. Schoolers with higher levels of self-control perceived homeschooling as less difficult, which in turn increased homeschooling (...) adherence. In contrast, schoolers with higher levels of boredom proneness perceived homeschooling as more difficult, which in turn reduced homeschooling adherence. These results partially hold when it comes to studying in the classroom. However, boredom threatened adherence only in the homeschooling context. Our results indicate that boredom proneness is a critical construct to consider when educational systems switch to homeschooling during a pandemic. (shrink)

The language of self-belief, including terms like shyness and diffidence, is complex and puzzling. The idea of self-esteem in particular, which has been given fresh currency by recent interest in ‘personalised learning’, continues to create problems. I argue first that we need a ‘thicker’ and more subtle moral psychology of self-belief; and, secondly, that there is a radical instability in the ideas and concepts in this area, an instability to which justice needs to be done. I (...) suggest that aspects of deconstruction are helpful here, and offer a deconstructive reading of Kipling’s poem, If—, in order to illustrate the power of literature and a certain kind of philosophy to destabilise and resist closure. (shrink)

The enormous growth in medical humanities programs during the past decade has resulted in an extensive literature concerning the content of the discipline and the issues that have been addressed. Comparatively little attention, however, has been devoted to the structure of the discipline of medical humanities concerning the process or the theoretical aspects of the pedagogy of teaching the discipline. This report explicitly addresses the pedagogical aspects of the discipline by comparing and contrasting two different basic approaches to the discipline (...) referred to as the classical humanities approach and the humanistic psychology approach which roughly approximate the cognitive and affective approaches respectively. These two approaches are compared and contrasted in terms of their goals, objectives, methods of implementation, philosophical assumptions and evaluational techniques. (shrink)

This study explores the relationship between self-compassion and mental health of postgraduates based on the perspective of the dual-factor model of mental health and the mediating role of help-seeking behavior. A total of 605 postgraduates were investigated with a questionnaire. The results showed that the DFM of mental health was better than the one-factor model for the mental health status of postgraduates. Among them, those with complete mental health accounted for the highest proportion, followed by vulnerable, troubled, and (...) symptomatic but content. Self-compassion and non-professional help-seeking behavior had a positive predictive effect on positive mental health factors of the postgraduates, while self-compassion had a negative predictive effect on their psychological symptoms. Non-professional help-seeking behavior played a partial mediating role between self-compassion and positive mental health factors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Rather than “selfishness,” a more accurate and revealing interpretation of Wang's use of siyuis “self‐centeredness.” One of the main goals in Wang's model of moral cultivation was to attain a state devoid of self‐centered desires. Wang relied a great deal on the exercise and cultivation of an emotional identification and feeling of oneness with others. In this paper, I first provide a brief summary of the role of Wang's concept of siyu in his moral psychology. I (...) then examine key passages in Wang's writings that reveal his nuanced understanding of siyu and, along the way, I draw on empirical research in psychology to help illuminate the significance of Wang's view of siyu to his overall model of moral cultivation. (shrink)

The premier volume in the _Progress in Self Psychology_ Series was completed two years after Heinz Kohut's death in 1981. Hence, this volume has a unique status in the history of self psychology: it bears the imprint of Kohut while charting a course of theoretical and clinical growth in the post-Kohut era. Biographical reminiscences about Kohut and commentaries on Kohut's "The Self-Psychological Approach to Defense and Resistance" [chapter seven of _How Does Analysis Cure?_] are juxtaposed with (...) a section of self-psychological reassessments of interpretations. Clinical papers cover the selfobject transferences, patient compliance, and the "self-pity response", while theoretical contributions present ideas of Stolorow, Bacal, White, and Detrick that are foundational to their subsequent writings. This volume helped to shape the theoretical and clinical agenda of self psychology in the decades following Kohut's death. (shrink)

This essay develops an account of the link between Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. It does so by articulating a Kantian account of moral psychology by way of aesthetic reflective judgements of sublimity. Since judgements of sublimity enrich the picture of a Kantian subject by forcefully revealing the unbounded power of the faculty of reason, I investigate the possibility that judgements of this kind could serve as a basis for moral motivation. The paper first shows how judgements of sublimity (...) help a subject recognize reason's unbounded nature, and proceeds to analyse the practical effects of a subject judging itself sublime. When judgements of sublimity have as their object the unbounded and unsythesizable power of reason, they may thereby serve as the basis for both the recognition of our moral vocation, and the grounds for determining the will to act from respect for it. Since a judgement of sublimity produces for Kant the experience of an enlivening emotion and an outflowing of vital forces, the paper then develops Kant's concept of “life” motivated by a recognition of its practical orientation. In this way sublimity rather than beauty can be interpreted as symbolic hypotyposis of morality. The paper then takes up less favourable interpretations of the practical effects of self-predicated judgements of sublimity, and constructs critical responses to such positions. I conclude, following Adorno, by stressing the historical and social dimension of the capacities for both making sublime judgements, and being morally enlivened by them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Self Between: From Freud to the New Social Psychology of FranceAndrew J. McKennaThe Self Between: From Freud to the New Social Psychology of France, by Eugene Webb; ix & 268 pp. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993, $35.00.That psychology and sociology are one science is the fundamental premise guiding Eugene Webb’s The Self Between, which he defines early on as “a (...) self constituted dynamically and continuously by the relationships it finds itself involved i n.” The “new social psychology of France” designated by his subtitle is mostly the one inspired by René Girard’s mimetic model of human behavior, to which four of Webb’s seven chapters are specifically devoted.Girard’s idea, which he learned from our literary masterpieces, is that human desire is mimetic, that it imitates other desires in its choice of objects and in pursuit of their possession. As desires converge on a single object, the locus of conflict will be between subjects rather within their individual psyches, a consequence that motivates Girard’s ongoing critique of Freudian psychoanalysis.But Freud’s theories are everywhere disputed in this book, which reports reliably on the devastating critiques advanced by François Roustang, Marie Balmary, and Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen. Roustang has convincingly (and entertainingly) uncovered Freud’s blindness to the pathologies of transference and discipleship investing the foundation of psychoanalysis. A pattern of rivalry for recognition and preeminence guides Freud’s career in a way that is reenacted around Lacan. Balmary, somewhat a Lacanian her self, has turned psychoanalytic theory against Freud to explore his own family secrets, while severely questioning the master’s bid for a universal theory pursued via self-analysis amidst a period of emotional upheaval. And Borch-Jacobsen has shown how th e dynamics of hypnosis that Freud rejected early on were brought back as transference, while arguing for his own part that mimetic identification with the other, rather than any primordial drives, is what brings the subject into being. These informat ive chapters help bring us up to date on significant debates that have developed since Lacan drew the French intellectual world, and so many Americans after it, into the orbit of psychoanalysis.But by far the bulk of Webb’s attention goes to Girard’s work and to that of [End Page 191] scholars and practitioners who have sought to extend it further in the social sciences. Principle among them is Jean-Michel Oughourlian, whose Puppet of Desire (translated by Webb in 1991) demonstrates how the mimetic model plays out in psychotherapy, notably in the workings of hypnotism and somnambulism, in cases of demonic possession, and in obsessional neurosis. In each case, the subject is unwitt ingly captive of another’s desire in a way that produces behavioral anomalies and disorders that are nonetheless available to lucid, jargon-free diagnosis. What is appealing here is the deployment of a rational explanation for irrational behavior, once we grasp the paradoxical rationale of desire; equally appealing prospects of actual healing are outlined here and at the end of the book, where possibilities of freedom and responsibility are resurrected from a technical vocabulary that smothers them.Girard’s idea of the self as relation, as interdividuality, rather than as a discreet unit, has social and political dimensions to which we only find tantalizing allusions in his works. They have been pursued with acumen by such writers as André Orléan, Paul Dumouchel and especially Jean-Pierre Dupuy, who figures importantly among those aligning systems theory with theories of social and economic organization. Like Borch-Jacobsen and Roustang, Dupuy restores due attention to concep tions of crowd behavior outlined at the end of the last century by Tarde and Le Bon, whose best insights Freud studiously discarded.This is richly interdisciplinary work, strongly suggesting that we variously redraw and erase lines defining academic fields. Occam’s razor flicks often and decisively in these pages, which restore needed balance to the effects of some wild er French imports. Webb brings no new ideas of his own to this capable synthesis, but his accurate report will help guide researchers toward major recent developments in France around and mostly beyond Freudian psychoanalysis... (shrink)

Every animal illustrates how they thrive, offering a model of how you might choose to thrive, too. If we're willing to listen--to follow the pawprints--we just might discover a kinder, braver, more courageous way of life.

Critiques G. Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection , from the perspectives of social constructionism, contemporary theory of metaphor, and existential-phenomenological psychology. This theory provides a contemporary biological view of consciousness and the self. Edelman's notion of consciousness as purely biological, and his attempt to ground intentionality in the body, are reductionistic. It is suggested that phenomenological descriptions must be taken into the center of the problem of consciousness. An understanding of the relation of the experiential basis of (...) metaphor and its ensuing ontological status, can offer a view of the influence of particular biological metaphors which could help to eliminate their reification in psychology and induce their critique. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This study conceptualized digital competence in line with self-determined theory and investigated how it alongside help-seeking and learning agency collectively preserved university students’ psychological well-being by assisting them to manage cognitive load and academic burnout, as well as increasing their engagement in online learning during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Moreover, students’ socioeconomic status and demographic variables were examined. Partial least square modeling and cluster analysis were performed on the survey data collected from 695 students. The findings show (...) that mental load and mental effort were positively related to academic burnout, which was significantly negatively associated with student engagement in online learning. Digital competence did not directly affect academic burnout, but indirectly via its counteracting effect on cognitive load. However, help-seeking and agency were not found to be significantly negatively related to cognitive load. Among the three SDT constructs, digital competence demonstrated the greatest positive influence on student engagement. In addition, female students from humanities and social sciences disciplines and lower-income families seemed to demonstrate the weakest digital competence, lowest learning agency, and least help-seeking behaviors. Consequently, they were more vulnerable to high cognitive load and academic burnout, leading to the lowest learning engagement. This study contributes to the ongoing arguments related to the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and informs the development of efficient interventions that preserve university students’ psychological well-being in online learning. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for the new field of Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience. This framework should be able to integrate insights from several relevant disciplines: theory on embodied cognition, ecological psychology, phenomenology, dynamical systems theory, and neurodynamics. We suggest that the main task of Radical Embodied Cognitive Neuroscience is to investigate the phenomenon of skilled intentionality from the perspective of the self-organization of the brain-body-environment system, while doing justice to (...) the phenomenology of skilled action. In previous work, we have characterized skilled intentionality as the organism's tendency toward an optimal grip on multiple relevant affordances simultaneously. Affordances are possibilities for action provided by the environment. In the first part of this paper, we introduce the notion of skilled intentionality and the phenomenon of responsiveness to a field of relevant affordances. Second, we use Friston's work on neurodynamics, but embed a very minimal version of his Free Energy Principle in the ecological niche of the animal. Thus amended, this principle is helpful for understanding the embeddedness of neurodynamics within the dynamics of the system “brain-body-landscape of affordances.” Next, we show how we can use this adjusted principle to understand the neurodynamics of selective openness to the environment: interacting action-readiness patterns at multiple timescales contribute to the organism's selective openness to relevant affordances. In the final part of the paper, we emphasize the important role of metastable dynamics in both the brain and the brain-body-environment system for adequate affordance-responsiveness. We exemplify our integrative approach by presenting research on the impact of Deep Brain Stimulation on affordance responsiveness of OCD patients. (shrink)

Resilience factors have been suggested as key mechanisms in the relation between symptoms and disability among individuals with chronic pain. However, there is a need to better operationalize resilience and to empirically evaluate its role and function. The present study examined psychological flexibility as a resilience factor in relation to symptoms and functioning among 252 adults with chronic pain applying for participation in a digital ACT-based self-help treatment. Participants completed measures of symptoms (pain intensity, anxiety), functioning (pain interference, (...) depression), as well as the hypothesized resilience factor psychological flexibility (measured as avoidance, value obstruction, and value progress). As expected, symptoms, functioning and resilience factors were significantly associated. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that psychological flexibility significantly contributed to the prediction of pain interference and depression when adjusting for age, pain and anxiety. Also, participants with low levels of psychological flexibility were more likely to be on sick leave. Furthermore, a series of multiple mediation analyses showed that psychological flexibility (avoidance, value obstruction, value progress) had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between symptoms and functioning. Avoidance was consistently shown to contribute to the indirect effect. Results support previous findings and suggest the importance of psychological flexibility as a resilience factor among individuals with chronic pain and anxiety. (shrink)

This article takes the following two assumptions for granted: first, that gifts influence physicians and, second, that the influences gifts have on physicians may be harmful for patients. These assumptions are common in the applied ethics literature, and they prompt an obvious practical question, namely, what is the best way to mitigate the negative effects? We examine the negative effects of gift giving in depth, considering how the influence occurs, and we assert that the ethical debate surrounding gift-giving practices must (...) be reoriented. Our main claim is that the failure of recent policies addressing gift giving can be traced to a misunderstanding of what psychological mechanisms are most likely to underpin physicians’ biased behavior as a result of interaction with the medical industry. The problem with gift giving is largely not a matter of malicious or consciously self-interested behavior, but of well-intentioned actions on the part of physicians that are nonetheless perniciously infected by the presence of the medical industry. Substantiating this claim will involve elaboration on two points. First, we will retrace the history of policies regarding gift giving between the medical profession and the medical industry and highlight how most policies assume a rationalistic view of moral agency. Reliance on this view of agency is best illustrated by past attempts to address gift giving in terms of conflicts of interest. Second, we will introduce and motivate an alternate view of moral agency emerging from recent literature in social psychology on implicit social cognition. We will show that proper consideration of implicit social cognition paints a picture of human psychology at odds with the rationalistic model assumed in discussions of COIs. With these two pieces on the table we will be able to show that, without fully appreciating the social-psychological mechanisms of implicit cognition, policy-makers are likely to overlook significant aspects of how gifts influence doctors. (shrink)