Against Reductionist Explanations of Human Behaviour: John Dupré

This paper attacks some prominent contemporary attempts to provide reductive accounts of ever wider areas of human behaviour. In particular, I shall address the claims of sociobiology (or evolutionary psychology) to provide a universal account of human nature, and attempts to subsume ever wider domains of behaviour within the scope of economics. I shall also consider some recent suggestions as to how these approaches might be integrated. Having rejected the imperialistic ambitions of these approaches, I shall briefly advocate a more pluralistic approach to the understanding of human behaviour, and one which leaves some space for the possibility of genuine human autonomy.     

论心理学发展的困境与出路

近年来西方心理学家对心理学发展取向提出强烈批评。综合各家所论,心理学以往发展的困境乃是由于：(1)自哲学心理学到科学心理学对人性解释的理论始终纷歧,以致无法形成常规科学条件;(2)科学心理学自始即标榜自然科学而缺独立意识;(3)强调科学方法,忽视人性特质而陷入削足适履困境。因此,今后国内心理学的发展势不能再全盘西化,而应在人性特质与本土文化基础上吸取西方心理学精义,针对国人心理特质研究发展出属於自己的理论与应用心理学。本文最后提出的四会能力教学构想,希望对本土文化取向应用心理学的研究发挥一点抛砖引玉作用。     

“Not Much to Praise in Such Seeking and Finding”: Evolutionary Psychology,the Biological Turn in the Humanities,and the Epistemology of Ignorance

This paper critiques the rise of scientific approaches to central questions in the humanities, specifically questions about human nature, ethics, identity, and experience. In particular, I look at how an increasing number of philosophers are turning to evolutionary psychology and neuroscience as sources of answers to philosophical problems. This approach constitutes what I term a biological turn in the humanities. I argue that the biological turn, especially its reliance on evolutionary psychology, is best understood as an epistemology of ignorance that contributes to a climate of hostility and intolerance regarding feminist insights about gender, identity, and the body.     

Evolutionary Perspectives and Transdisciplinary Intersections: A Roadmap to Generative Areas of Overlap in Discussing Human Nature

This essay assesses a subset of approaches to the topic of human nature(s) and endeavors to identify generative areas of overlap for transdisciplinary conversation. Rather than pursue a resolution to the problem of potentially incompatible frameworks across perspectives, I seek to provide a template, or a roadmap, for a better conversation. My conclusions derive from a targeted literature assessment of subareas within the disciplines of philosophy, biology, anthropology, psychology, and theology, emphasizing those open to evolutionary contexts. I highlight eighteen core elements/themes and propose a few central thematic clusters as foci for moving the exchange on human nature between theology and science forward.     

中国化:我国心理学的挑战与机遇

现代主流心理学的源头主要是西方传统文化背景下的近代科学 ,其学科危机亦主要是由于盲目借鉴西方近代科学的人性观以及方法论所致。我国心理学要想摆脱这样的困境 ,就必须加强文化分析的方法 ,从中国传统文化中吸取有价值的思想 ,开辟一条新的发展道路 ,即心理学的中国化之路。这样 ,我国的心理学便能在东西方两大文化的浇灌下健康发展     

心理学研究中人的命运与文化的命运

目的:通过追踪文化研究历史,探究对当今文化心理学研究的启示意义。方法:整理和回顾心理学史上关于文化的研究及文献,并对各阶段的文化研究进行评述。结果:文化在心理学史上经历了坎坷多桀的命运,文化在各阶段的不同遭遇与研究者们对人的本质的认识密切相关。结论:对人的本质的正确理解是当今文化心理学健康发展的前提。     

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE RATIONALITY OF FAITH

This paper evaluates the role that evolutionary psychology can play in examining the rationality of faith in the Christian sense. It is argued that because evolutionary psychology enables us to understand human nature, it can help us understand what faith is. I argue that faith is not a universal human instinct that all religions tap into. Rather, we must understand how the early Christian community used the basic building blocks provided by human nature in a particular way. It is argued that it is a misunderstanding of the nature of faith to assert that faith is intrinsically irrational. However, evolutionary psychology cannot tell us whether or not faith is rational.     

Who wants to be a psychologist?

Every significant piece of public policy, every important generalization in history, economics, political science, and sociology depends on (largely unevaluated) assumptions about human nature. Personality psychology concerns the nature of human nature; it is, therefore, concerned with one of the most powerful and dangerous forces on earth. Developing adequate methods for conceptualizing human nature and forecasting significant components of social behavior-for example, integrity, creativity, leadership-would seem to be a matter of real urgency. Nonetheless, personality psychology has a minor and marginal status in academic psychology. I have spent my career trying to understand the origins of human behavior, trying to develop measurement models for capturing key elements of social performance, and trying to defend the study of personality against the complaints of a seemingly endless supply of academic critics.     

西方心理学中两种文化的对立及其思考

西方心理学中科学文化与人文文化的对立由来已久,构成了西方心理学的发展史。两 种文化的冲突表现在心理学科学观、人性观、本体论和方法论四个方面,这种冲突造成了西方心理学目前的困境。作者认为,西方心理学中两种文化冲突的存在揭示了大力发展理论心理学的必要性和紧迫性,也是心理学统一的前提,并对心理学的本土化有可资借鉴的经验。     

Nature,culture and social psychology

It is proposed that ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, key concepts in structural anthropology, have an important bearing on assumptions underlying rival theoretical approaches in social psychology. Experimental social psychologists tend to make the tacit assumption that they are dealing only with nature, while ethogenists like Harré explicitly concentrate on culture and treat nature as irrelevant. Others like Tajfel and Moscovici occupy a middle ground, being concerned with both aspects. Perhaps the most radical critic is Gergen, whose rejection of nature and culture is discussed in detail and shown to be largely based on western cultural beliefs. It is further suggested that mainstream experimental social psychology, epitomized by Aronson's The Social Animal, is equally culture-bound, although masquerading as the study of nature. This contention is supported by an account of predominant failure of replication in a not greatly dissimilar culture. It is concluded, with Doise and Berry, that we need ‘multiple social psychologies’, and with Tajfel and Pepitone that social psychological research must consider the wider system within which social behaviour takes place.     

Teaching culturally informed psychological assessment: conceptual issues and demonstrations

Multicultural assessment requires a strong conceptual foundation to address the complex and dynamic nature of culture. I present 3 conceptual issues as well as the demonstrations or exercises that I use to teach these concepts to students in a doctoral program of clinical psychology. The first conceptual issue is that multicultural assessment requires a solid foundation in traditional assessment theory and methods. Second, culturally informed assessors specify and test what about the social and cultural world matters to avoid making inferences based on group labels associated with ethnicity or race. Third, culturally responsive assessors must formulate and test both culture-specific and alternative (impairment or dysfunction) hypotheses, which refers to shifting cultural lenses (Kleinman & Kleinman, 1991). I then review exercises and demonstrations to illustrate these conceptual ideas. My aim is to help instructors guide students of assessment toward integrating a process-oriented way of thinking about culture, one that promotes a critical approach to our understanding of the role of culture in human behavior and its assessment.     

Notes towards a description of Social Representations

The theory of social representations occupies a place apart in social psychology both by the problems it raises and the scale of the phenomena with which it deals. This provokes many a criticism and misunderstanding. Such a theory may not correspond with the model of social psychology as it is defined at present. One attempts however to show that it answers important social and scientific questions, in what it differs from the classical conception of collective representations and, from the very beginning, adopts a constructivist perspective which has spread in social psychology since. Several trends of research have confirmed its vision of the relations between social and cognitive phenomena, communication and thought. More detailed remarks aim at outlining the nature of social representations, their capacity to create information, their function which is to familiarize us with the strange, according to the categories of our culture. Going farther, one insists on the diversity of methodological approaches. If the experimental method is useful to understand how people should think, higher mental and social processes must be approached by different methods, including linguistic analysis and observation of how people think. No doubt, social representations have a relation with the more recent field of social cognition. But inasmuch as the former depend on content and context, i.e. subjectivity and sociability of people, they approach the phenomena differently from the latter. Referring to child psychology and anthropology, one can contend, despite appearances, that it is also a more scientific approach. There is however much to be learned from criticisms and there is still a long way to go before we arrive at a satisfactory theory of social thinking and communication.     

Integrating cross-cultural psychology research methods into ethnic minority psychology

Multicultural psychology has 2 related but often disconnected streams, namely cross-cultural psychology and racial and ethnic minority psychology (Hall & Maramba, 2001). We propose that advances in both fields will be facilitated if there is greater cross-fertilization, especially in methodological approaches given that proponents in both fields are interested in studying and understanding the role and impact of culture on human behavior. To facilitate this cross-fertilization, we present 3 methodological approaches that would be of value in racial and ethnic minority psychology. First, we present an overview of the importance of and the approaches to evaluating and establishing measurement equivalence. Second, we discuss recent advances in the understanding of conceptual equivalence in light of indigenous approaches, cultural manipulation, and multilevel analysis. Third, we present a combined etic-emic approach to cross-cultural personality research as illustrated by the Cross-Cultural Personality Assessment Inventory developed by Fanny Cheung and her colleagues.     

Personality Science, Self-Regulation, and Health Behavior

In their paper, Cervone, Shadel, Smith, and Fiori (2006 ) present a thorough analysis of self-regulatory behavior, understood as the most genuine expression of the agentic and purposive nature of human beings. Therefore, we can expect that research on personality could shed light on our understanding of self-regulatory processes and behavioral expressions. With this aim, Cervone et al. have carried out an updated analysis of personality psychology theory and research, resuming the debate between variable and person-centered approaches, and commenting on the contributions the Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture (KAPA) can make to the design of idiosyncratic tools and strategies for personality assessment and to the understanding of the role of the personality system in different contexts of applied psychology, such as health, clinical and industrial/organisational psychology. Here, I would like to examine two topics, to which Cervone et al. pay substantial attention in their paper: self-regulation and personality dynamics, and the role of personality science in addressing central questions in health psychology.     

具身心智对进化心理学的质疑与挑战

具身-生成心智倡导生命与认知的深刻连续性,它重新定义了自然选择,强调身体和生命活动对认知的关键意义,并指出每一个人都是经过文化适应的主体。它在心智进化的本质、认知的核心工作假设、人类本性与文化,以及基因、身体、生命活动与认知的关系等问题上都有着完全不同于进化心理学的理解,并对后者提出了质疑和挑战。     

Human Nature and Culture: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective

Personality psychology is the broadest of all psychological subdisciplines in that it seeks a conceptually integrated understanding of both human nature and important individual differences. Cultural differences pose a unique set of problems for any comprehensive theory of personality—how can they be reconciled with universals of human nature on the one hand and within‐cultural variation on the other? Evolutionary psychology provides one set of conceptual tools by which this conceptual integration can be made. It requires jettisoning the false but still‐pervasive dichotomy of culture versus biology, acknowledging a universal human nature, and recognizing that the human mind contains many complex psychological mechanisms that are selectively activated, depending on cultural contexts. Culture rests on a foundation of evolved psychological mechanisms and cannot be understood without those mechanisms.     

Impact of Racism on Ethnic Minority Mental Health

ABSTRACT— A problem in ethnic minority mental health that can be solved in the foreseeable future is understanding how subtle and covert forms of racism affect psychological health of racial minorities. Although scientific psychology has generated a large body of literature on racial prejudice, stereotypes, intergroup attitudes, and racial bias and their often implicit and automatic nature, relatively little is known about the effects of these subtle racial bias on minority individuals. Following a selective review of recent developments in experimental psychology and multicultural psychology, I suggest some promising approaches and opportunities for future integration that would advance the field.     

Evolutionary psychology: the emperor's new paradigm

For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue that the empirical evidence for these "discoveries" is inconclusive, at best. I suggest that, as the reigning paradigm in evolutionary psychology has produced questionable results, the evolutionary study of human psychology is still in need of a guiding paradigm.     

What is “theory of mind”? Concepts,cognitive processes and individual differences

Research on “theory of mind” has traditionally focused on a narrow participant group (preschool children) using a narrow range of experimental tasks (most notably, false-belief tasks). Recent work has greatly expanded the age range of human participants tested to include human infants, older children, and adults, has devised new tasks, and has adopted methods from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. However, theoretical work has not kept pace with these changes, with the result that studies using one kind of method or participant group often inherit assumptions about the nature of theory of mind from other research, with little regard for whether these assumptions are appropriate. I argue that three distinct approaches to thinking about theory of mind are already implicit in research practice, and that future work, whether with infants, children, or adults, will benefit from articulating these approaches more clearly and following their different implications for what theory of mind is and how it should be studied.     

What is "theory of mind"? Concepts, cognitive processes and individual differences

Research on "theory of mind" has traditionally focused on a narrow participant group (preschool children) using a narrow range of experimental tasks (most notably, false-belief tasks). Recent work has greatly expanded the age range of human participants tested to include human infants, older children, and adults, has devised new tasks, and has adopted methods from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. However, theoretical work has not kept pace with these changes, with the result that studies using one kind of method or participant group often inherit assumptions about the nature of theory of mind from other research, with little regard for whether these assumptions are appropriate. I argue that three distinct approaches to thinking about theory of mind are already implicit in research practice, and that future work, whether with infants, children, or adults, will benefit from articulating these approaches more clearly and following their different implications for what theory of mind is and how it should be studied.