Psychological Realism, Morality, and Chimpanzees

The parsimonious consideration of research into food sharing among chimpanzees suggests that the type of social regulation found among our closest genetic relatives can best be understood as a form of morality. Morality is here defined from a naturalistic perspective as a system in which self-aware individuals interact through socially prescribed, psychologically realistic rules of conduct which provide these individuals with an awareness of how one ought to behave. The empirical markers of morality within chimpanzee communities and the traditional moral traits to which they correspond are (1) self-awareness/agency; (2) calculated reciprocity/obligation; (3) moralistic aggression/blame; and (4) consolation/empathy.     

Psychological need-satisfaction,and basketball performance

ObjectivesWe applied self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) to examine whether pre-game psychological need-satisfaction predicts the quality of sports performance, and whether performance, in turn, predicts post-game need-satisfaction.Design/methodUndergraduate participants competing in a recreational league basketball season completed autonomy, competence, and relatedness need-satisfaction measures before and after games (N = 150 person-games). For each game, data were collected on the number of one, two, and three point shots taken, as well as shooting percentages for each type of shot.ResultsParticipants with greater pre-game autonomy performed best overall during games, although this pattern did not emerge within-subjects. Good game performance predicted enhanced post-game relatedness and competence, both between- and within-subjects.ConclusionImplications for optimal sports performance are considered.     

Death, Asymmetry and the Psychological Self

Lucretius thought that we should be as indifferent to the time of our death as we are toward the time of our birth. This paper will critique the ways in which Thomas Nagel, Frederik Kaufman and Christopher Belshaw have appealed to a psychological notion of the self in an attempt to defend our asymmetric intuitions against Lucretius' claim. Four objections are marshalled against the psychological–self strategy: (1) the psychological notion of the self fails to capture all of our intuitions about selfhood; (2) some of the intuitions to which proponents of a psychological notion of the self appeal are drawn from irrelevant or misleading ethical and epistemological aspects of certain examples they consider; (3) the arguments developed on the basis of a psychological notion of the self do not answer Lucretius in the right way; and (4) the psychological–self explanation overlooks an important distinction between awareness–dependent and awareness–independent explanations. While the psychological–self explanation of the asymmetry in our attitudes toward the time of our birth and the time of our death may explain why Nagel, Kaufman and Belshaw have asymmetric attitudes, it fails to explain why most people have such attitudes.     

Folk Concepts, Natural Language, and Psychological Constructs: The California Psychological Inventory and the Five-Factor Model

ABSTRACT Both the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1987) and the five-factor model of personality have roots in folk concepts of personality. The present article offers a conceptual analysis of CPI scales in terms of the five-factor model. In the first study, judges rated the item content of CPI scales in terms of the five factors. In the second, CPI scales were correlated with the factors as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b) in a sample of 348 men and women ages 19 to 92. Both studies showed meaningful links between CPI scales and four of the factors; Agreeableness appeared to be underrepresented in CPI scales. The utility of systematic rational item analysis in terms of the five factors and the evolving relation of folk concepts to psychological constructs are discussed.     

Religiousness,Spirituality, and Psychological Distress in Taiwan

Most of the previous research on religion and mental health has focused solely on Western, predominantly Christian societies. Using a 2004 national survey of 1,881 adults in Taiwan, this study investigates the relationships between multidimensional measures of religiousness/spirituality and psychological distress in an Eastern context. Our findings differ from previous studies in the West, showing that: (1) religious-based supernatural beliefs are associated with more distress; (2) daily prayer is associated with less distress; (3) engaging in secular-based supernatural activities like fortune-telling is related to more distress; and (4) the frequency of religious attendance is unrelated to levels of distress. Broader theoretical and empirical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender,Spirituality and Psychological Well-Being

The aim of this study was to determine whether gender moderates the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. A secondary data analysis based on a cross sectional survey was implemented. A convenience sample of 508 participants (males = 143, females = 365; age range 18–65 with 66% in the 18–25 category) from the North-West Province of South Africa completed questionnaires on spirituality and psychological well-being after informed consent was obtained. Findings show that gender moderates the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being. This moderation effect was stronger in the case of existential well-being rather than religious well-being as components of spiritual wellbeing, and also stronger in one of the sub-groups. Future studies may explore the role of contextual factors such as cultural orientation and other socio-demographic variables in this moderation effect, as well as gender based perceptions and practices of spirituality with a view to facilitate gender sensitive psychological well-being programmes.     

Neighborhood Physical Environments,Recreational Wellbeing,and Psychological Health

The physical environment in which individuals live has important implications for their access to resources and services. The current study examined the role of several features of neighborhoods, such as perceived walkability and neighborhood appearance, in promoting recreational wellbeing, and resulting in impacts on physical wellbeing, happiness, and life satisfaction of residents. Survey responses (N = 1392) were collected in two distinct geographical areas and, using structural equation modeling, relationships between neighborhood physical environments and resident outcomes were explored. Results indicated perceived walkability (access to services) and neighborhood appearance (upkeep and attractiveness) played a significant role in increasing recreational wellbeing. Also, recreational wellbeing was positively related to individuals’ physical wellbeing. Lastly, physical wellbeing was positively associated with happiness and life satisfaction. Together, these findings suggest community planners could use several practical neighborhood improvements to improve the overall health, happiness, and life satisfaction of their residents.

     

Psychological Distance,Future Time Perspective,and Internal-External Expectancy

Based on the formulation that psychological distance, future time perspective, and internal-external expectancy represent outcomes of the socialization process, it was hypothesized that desired psychological intimacy would be positively related to an extended future time perspective and to an internal orientation. Using a newly constructed Psychological Distance Scale, the Future Events Test, and Rotter's Internal-External Scale, administered to college students, closeness to the concepts Sister and Father was found to be associated with internal expectancy for female Ss. There was also some support for the predicted relationship between psychological closeness and an extended future time perspective. The marked sex differences on the Future Events Test suggest that psychological distance has different meanings for the sexes.     

Psychological,physical, and interpersonal correlates of emotional expressiveness,conflict, and control

This article examines the relations between emotional expression, conflict over expression, and emotional control and psychological and physical distress. Fifty married couples completed two mail-in surveys containing the Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (EEQ), the Ambivalence Over Emotional Expression Questionnaire (AEQ), and the Emotional Control Questionnaire (ECQ), as well as measures of psychological and physical well-being. They also made expressiveness and well-being ratings of their spouses. AEQ and ECQ scores were significantly positively correlated with measures of psychological distress and questionnaire measures of physical discomfort. In addition, AEQ scores for items dealing explicitly with anger predicted visits to health-care provider for illness. EEQ scores did not predict either psychological distress or physical symptoms. AEQ scores were also positively correlated with spouse's symptoms and alcohol use. Wives' expressiveness ratings for their husbands were negatively correlated with a number of indices of psychological distress, while husbands' ratings of wives' expressiveness were positively correlated with measures of distress. Generally, expressiveness, inhibition, and conflict over expression in one spouse did not consistently predict well-being of the other. Implications of these findings for future research in the area of emotion and illness as well as in relationship satisfaction are discussed.     

Global Maladaptive Schemas, Negative Life Events, and Psychological Distress

The relationship between maladaptive self-schemas, negative life events, and psychological distress was assessed. The model tested was based on Young's (J. Young, 1990) diathesis–stress conceptualization of maladaptive schemas, which are believed to represent the cognitive diathesis underlying Axis II personality pathology. Young's model predicts that schemas are chronically activated in individuals with maladaptive schemas. Therefore, the experience of salient negative life events is less likely to exacerbate the level of distress experienced by those having maladaptive schemas. A nonclinical sample (N = 93) was assessed using the Schema Questionnaire (SQ), a measure of maladaptive self-schemas, a measure of negative life events, and several measures of psychological distress. Support was found for this prediction indicated by a Schema × Negative Life Events interaction in which the distress level of High SQ participants was less affected by negative life events compared to Low SQ participants.     

Silencing,Psychological Conflict,and the Distinction Between Virtue and Self-Control

According to many virtue ethicists, one of Aristotle’s important achievements was drawing a clear, qualitative distinction between the character traits of temperance (sophrosyne) and self-control (enkrateia). In an influential series of papers, John McDowell has argued that a clear distinction between temperance (or virtue, in general) and self-control can be maintained only if one claims that, for the virtuous individual (but not for the self-controlled), considerations in favor of actions that are contrary to virtue are “silenced.” Some virtue ethicists reject McDowell’s silencing view as offering an implausible or inappropriate picture of human virtue, but they argue that (contra McDowell) virtue can still be clearly distinguished from self-control by the absence of motivational conflict alone. In this paper, I argue that this criticism of McDowell is at most half right. If the silencing view is false, so that virtue can have a cost and the virtuous person can justifiably feel negative emotions in response to that cost, there is no principled reason why the virtuous person cannot also have motivational conflict. So, if one rejects the silencing view, then one must allow that the distinction between virtue and self-control is at most a matter of degree.

     

Archetypes and Gender: Goddesses,Warriors, and Psychological Health

This article describes the principles and assumptions of Jung's archetypal psychology and how they have been adopted and modified by feminist counselors and the mythopoetic men's movement. It critiques each of these revisions of Jungian archetypal psychology and provides suggestions to counselors for modifying and implementing concepts and techniques that are based in archetypal psychology.     

The Effect of Psychological Skills Training (PST) on Self-Regulation Behavior,Self-Efficacy,and Psychological Skill Use in Military Pilot-Trainees

Set within B. J. Zimmerman’s (1989 Zimmerman, B. J. (1989). A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81, 329–339.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning, Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 81, pp. 329–339; and B. J. Zimmerman, 2000 Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social–cognitive perspective. In M. Boekaerts, P. Pintrich, &; M. Seidner (Eds.), Self-regulation: Theory, research, and applications (pp. 13–39). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Attaining self-regulation: A social-cognitive perspective, in M. Boekaerts, P. Pintrich, &; M. Seidner, Eds., Self-Regulation: Theory, Research, and Applications, pp. 13–39, Orlando, Florida, Academic Press) cyclical model of self-regulation and social–cognitive theory, this study tested the hypothesis that multi-modal psychological skills training (PST) would increase self-regulation behavior, self-efficacy, and psychological skill use in military pilot-trainees experiencing course-related learning difficulties. From pre- to post-intervention, findings showed that specific self-regulation behavior increased linearly. Likewise, significant increases in self-efficacy and psychological skill use occurred, along with concomitant reductions in anxiety and worry. Changes were generally retained at 2-month follow-up. PST highlights potential in modifying pilot-trainee cognitive and behavioral strategies to underpin learning, improve individual/cohort responsiveness, and importantly, cost effectiveness in training provision.     

Psychological Mindedness,Personality and Creative Cognition

Research into psychological mindedness (PM) has focuses on its beneficial role in improving physical and mental well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of two PM measures and personality in predicting creative cognition performance. Following the completion of a battery of questionnaires, 176 participants from the general population (age ranged from 16 to 68 years old) completed 3 creative cognition tasks. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed independent effects for both the PM interest and insight variables in performance on 2 of the 3 creative cognition measures. Critically, these showed that the PM variables positively predicted performance on both the Creative Visualization Task and the Remote Associates Test. Conversely, the association between performance on the Alternate Uses Task and the PM variables was explained by the openness to new experience variable. These findings are discussed in the context of the inclusion of further mediating variables that may explain the causal relationship between PM and creative cognition.     

Psychological,endocrine, and neural correlates of attentional bias in subclinical depression

Background: Our knowledge with respect to psychological, endocrine, and neural correlates of attentional bias in individuals with high vulnerability to developing depression – the subclinically depressed, still remains limited. Design: The study used a 2?×?2 mixed design. Methods: Attentional bias toward happy and sad faces in healthy (N?=?26) and subclinically depressed individuals (N?=?22) was assessed via a neuroimaging dot-probe attention task. Participants also completed trait and state psychological measures and provided saliva samples for cortisol analysis. Results: The subclinical group showed attentional bias toward happy faces; past use of problem-focused coping strategies when dealing with a personally relevant stressor as well as state levels of anxiety, together, contributed to this bias. In the control group, the happy attentional bias was positively correlated with activity in the right caudate. In the subclinical group, the bias was negatively associated with the left fusiform gyrus and positively with the left inferior parietal lobule and bilateral putamen. We observed group differences in association between cortisol levels during the task and neural activity during happy attentional bias processing within the key regions involved in attention. Conclusions: The attentional bias toward happy faces may reflect an active coping attempt by the subclinical participants.     

Attachment,Assessment, and Psychological Intervention: A Case Study of Anorexia

Attachment patterns and personality dimensions have always been considered important to the development and adaptation of the individual. The first aim of this article was to address some basic questions about the place of attachment in a multimethod assessment when compiling a complete picture of the patient's personality functioning. The second aim was to present the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP; George &; West, 2001 George, C. and West, M. 2001. The development and preliminary validation of a new measure of adult attachment: The Adult Attachment Projective. Attachment and Human Development, 3: 30–61. [Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) as a valid and productive assessment measure. Based on a single case study of an anorexic young woman, the article demonstrates how the AAP is integrated with the Rorschach Comprehensive System (Exner, 1991 Exner, J. E. 1991. The Rorschach: A comprehensive system: Vol. 2. Interpretation , 2nd ed., New York, NY: Wiley.  [Google Scholar], 1993) and other assessment tools in both the assessment and in developing a treatment plan.