The knower,inside and out

Adherents of the epistemological position called internalism typically believe that the view they oppose, called externalism, is such a new and radical departure from the established way of seeing knowledge that its implications are uninteresting. Perhaps itis relatively novel, but the approach to knowledge with the greatest antiquity is the one that equates it withcertainty, and while this conception is amenable to the demands of the internalist, it is also a non-starter in the opinion of almost all contemporary epistemologists since obviously it directly implies that we know nothing about the world. Perhaps skepticism is correct, but there are conceptions of knowledge at least as plausible as the certainty equation that do not obviously land us there. It is its promise along these lines that makes the so-called traditional conception of knowledge initially interesting. But contrary to popular belief, the traditional conception cannot be claimed by internalists if it is to have any chance at all in avoiding skepticism; to avoid skepticism, I shall argue, it has to have an externalist element.Moreover, each of the departures from the traditional view that appears in the Gettier literature is externalist as well, or at least all of the ones of which I am aware. The only genuine forms of internalism are those held by philosophers who draw a fairly sharp line between knowledge and justified belief, ignore the former, then offer an internalist account of the latter. This approach is very common and very plausible. But it is not as useful as is often thought; in particular, I shall suggest, it must succumb to a form of skepticism.     

Scientific language inside out

The Scientific Voice, by Scott L. Montgomery, (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1996), 460 pages, $44.50 (cloth); $19.95 (paper)     

Turning memory development inside out

These papers provide a useful progress report on how the mature and successful field of memory development is transcending traditional boundaries of populations, content, context, and design. Examining children’s memory for distant as well as recent occurrences, for social interactions as well as individual experiences, for meaningful as well as arbitrary information, and for emotion-laden as well as neutral experiences is creating a broader and more vigorous field. Even greater progress can be made by measuring at a fine grain level the processing activities that experiences elicit, how such immediate processing activities shape later memory, and how changes in processing with age and experience produce memory development.     

Turning a penrose triangle inside out

Why do impossible figures, which cannot exist in three dimensions, appear to make threedimensional sense? In order to shed some light on this question the limits may be tested to which three-dimensional operations on these figures can be performed. In this paper a particularly difficult operation, viz., torus eversion is attempted. Not only is an eversion found to be possible but an unfamiliar impossibility develops. The regular form of the eversion is shown to be unique.     

Creativity inside out from theory to practice

Abstract:

A theoretical rationale is presented for a creativity program. This program targets the creativity of teachers, capitalizes on the intrinsic motivation of both teachers and students, includes elements of playfulness and fun, and utilizes multiple intelligences. It consists of a three volume spiral curriculum for kindergarten through the 8th Grade. This curriculum elevates creativity studies to a central position for organizing and demonstrating knowledge across the curriculum. Creativity is defined as self‐expression inherent in all children, predicated upon their ability to access and express a unique personal and cultural vantage point. Pilot work conducted in Lawndale, California, is also detailed. This included an intensive teacher in‐service training, with questionnaires about the program administered at the middle and end of the training. Results support the integration of creativity studies into the basic elementary school curriculum.     

PREP inside and out: marriage education for inmates

Although research has demonstrated that marriage education has positive effects on relationship quality, little is known about how such services impact relationships where one partner is incarcerated. The current study implemented an adapted version of the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP Inside and Out) for inmates in Oklahoma correctional facilities. Inmates, with or without their partners, participated in the 12-hour program. The impact of the program was investigated on a range of relationship variables including satisfaction with relationship, dedication, confidence, communication skills, friendship, and negative interactions as reported by the inmate partner. Participants reported substantial gains in all variables and in overall satisfaction with their relationship after completing the program, regardless of their gender and racial/ethnic background. Implications for future marriage education programs and research in prisons are discussed.     

理想情感及其影响的跨文化差异

理想情感是人们期望获得的情感状态。情感评估理论认为文化对理想情感的塑造有着重要影响,主要的影响途径有文化体验、文化价值观和社会文化变化。理想情感对个体会产生具有文化特异性的影响,主要会影响个体的偏好及选择行为、混合情绪体验、身心健康和社会认知决策。理想情感研究未来发展可以着眼于4个方向:使用纵向视角研究理想情感,进一步探索理想情感的前因变量,打造适合中国文化的心理健康标准和通过认识理想情感来消除文化隔阂。     

互联网数据中的文化差异与文化变迁

互联网时代,人们在网络上留下了各种反映其心理过程与文化特征的信息。这些庞大多样的互联网数据为文化心理学研究提供了新视角。首先,当前文化心理学存在文化差异和文化变迁两种研究取向,互联网数据相较传统来源数据在这两种研究上均存在若干优势;其次,针对4种类型的互联网数据,文化心理学家利用文本分析、多媒体分析、社会网络分析和互联网使用行为分析的方法进行研究;再次,基于互联网数据及其分析方法,文化差异与变迁研究取得了丰硕的成果;最后,当前基于互联网数据的文化心理学研究存在效度、技术与理论局限,未来研究需通过合理抽样、检验新指标有效性、准因果分析、充分运用新技术、数据驱动等方法来提升方法效度、结果深度及理论多样性。     

Cultural difference and the therapeutic alliance: an evidence-based analysis

The research on positive psychotherapy outcome consistently indicates that the quality of the alliance is important across different models of psychotherapy (D. E. Orlinsky, M. H. Ronnestad, & U. Willutzki, 2004; B. E. Wampold, 2000). Social psychological research has documented how "unintentional bias" can produce barriers to university admissions, employment, and advancement of well-qualified members of ethnic minority groups (J. F. Dovidio, S. L. Gaertner, K. Kawakami, & G. Hodson, 2002). Neuroscience is further confirming social psychological responses associated with race (J. L. Eberhard, 2005). Unintentional bias identified in social psychological research may be part of the psychotherapist/client interaction, interfere with the therapeutic alliance, and partly account for the high dropout rates and underutilization of psychotherapeutic services by people of color. The purpose of this article is to provide an evidence-based analysis of how psychologists in practice may unintentionally interfere with development of quality alliances with culturally different clients or patients and thus contribute to the barriers to effective multicultural counseling and psychotherapy. Principles from the American Psychological Association's (2003) multicultural guidelines and a review of relevant research are applied in suggesting strategies to reduce bias and to develop culturally appropriate skills in psychological practices.     

Ontological difference,anthropological difference,and equal liberty

In this lecture, the author seeks to articulate in a systematic manner, although still tentative, the three ideas about which he has been developing his personal philosophy in the last period: “Ontological difference”, which after Heidegger and Derrida needs to become redefined in terms of a quasi‐transcendental problematic of alterity; “anthropological difference”, which covers the wholerange of oppositions which at the same time are inseparable from a representation of the “human” and impossible to define as invariable binaries; “equal liberty”, the combination of heterogeneous values which, since Ancient democracies and Modern republican insurrections, has installed the tension of emancipation at the heart of the political institution.     

Exploring the frontier from the inside out: John Sloan's nude studies

The American realist artist John Sloan (1871-1951), a leading member of The Eight and the Ashcan School, is best known for his paintings and etchings of New York City life at the turn of the twentieth century--pictures that have endured as major documents in art history. Given the social nature of his early images, contemporaries were perplexed when Sloan became almost exclusively preoccupied with what was perhaps the most unpopular genre in American art--the female nude. Yet despite disapproval from his peers and lack of public interest, he continued to focus on nude studies for over twenty years, and created a series of unusual and disturbing images that so far have defied explanation. Formal analyses exist, but little has been written about the content of these pictures. My study bypasses the question of aesthetic quality that has troubled other art historians, and instead attempts to correlate these works with Sloan's personal life and his early career. When interpreted in the light of his history and his own words, these images reveal Sloan's intimate connection to his depicted female figures--a bond that emerges despite his attempt to maintain an objective distance from his subjects. My analysis is based on the work of D. W. Winnicott, who theorized that cultural production embodies our earliest, most profound relationship to our parents. As I will argue, the late nudes represent an intense period of mature, retrospective self-exploration. While this psychoanalytic investigation is certainly speculative, it is intended to open some possible new ways of understanding Sloan's representations of women.     

Forging difference out of similarity: the multiplicity of corrective experience

In the context of work with an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, the interplay of multiple forms of engagement contributing to therapeutic action is explored. The compulsion to repeat old patterns is seen to be gradually overcome by new corrective experience in which the whole of the patient's sense of the analyst as a person is greater than the sum of its parts. Interpretation of enactments--often involving patterns of dominance and submission--is complemented by a range of "helpful" actions that must be detoxified. That process entails the progressive differentiation of coercion and influence, on the one hand, and of compliance and responsiveness, on the other In the end, autonomy and creative responsiveness emerge as integral to each other rather than as mutually exclusive. This development requires that the patient gradually relinquish an "essentialist" view of self and other in favor of a "constructivist" view, in which the ambiguity of experience offers opportunities for new forms of relational engagement and understanding.     

Sexuate difference, ontological difference: Between Irigaray and Heidegger

Animating Luce Irigaray’s oeuvre are two indissociable projects: the disruption of Western metaphysics and the thinking of sexual difference. The intersection of these two projects implies that any attempt to think through the meaning and significance of Irigaray’s notoriously fraught invocation of sexual difference must take seriously the way in which this invocation is itself always already inflected by her disruptive gesture. In this paper, I will attempt to elucidate one moment of this intersection by focusing on her critical engagement with Heidegger. In L’oubli de l’air, Irigaray criticizes Heidegger’s interpretation of the principle of identity as instantiating the same neglect of sexual difference that has been inscribed throughout the history of Western metaphysics. Moreover, Irigaray identifies the vestigial traces of this metaphysical legacy in Heidegger’s commitments to phenomenology. My claim, however, is that if we turn to Derrida’s second Geschlecht essay in order to mediate between Irigaray and Heidegger, the coimplicative nature of their projects comes into focus: on one hand, Derrida identifies within Heidegger’s work an incipient articulation of the very notion of sexuate difference that, on Irigaray’s reading, Heidegger’s work requires but nonetheless elides; on the other hand, Derrida’s rereading of Heidegger’s phenomenological commitments corroborates the philosophical significance of Irigaray’s intervention by recontextualizing the parameters that delimit her invocation of sexuate difference.     

Cultural difference in maladaptive functions of perfectionistic self‐presentation

Perfectionistic self‐presentation (PSP), which describes an expressive aspect of perfectionism in the interpersonal domain, is a defensive form of perfectionism that has been relatively understudied. Although existing evidence obtained from Western societies has consistently shown maladaptive functions of PSP, the question of whether these patterns are universal remains unanswered. The current research explored the potential moderating effect of culture by evaluating whether the negative influence of PSP is weaker in Asian societies that encourage the use of defensive interpersonal strategies than in Western societies. Two studies recruiting Chinese and North American participants were conducted. In Study 1 (n = 302), the results showed that the relation between PSP and personal mastery was positive among Chinese participants and was negative among North American participants. In contrast, a positive relation between PSP and perceived constraints was observed in both cultures. Study 2 (n = 295) replicated the findings obtained in Study 1. In addition, the findings showed that the relation between PSP and self‐esteem, but not that between PSP and depression, was moderated by participants’ cultural backgrounds. Taken together, these results indicate both universal and culturally specific patterns regarding the influence of PSP, suggesting that PSP is a complex construct.