The Judaic foundations of rational–emotive behavioural therapy

This paper will explore the connections between rabbinical Judaism, rational–emotive behavioural therapy (REBT), and related forms of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). Seven main themes are identified. Both the Judaic tradition and REBT/CBT emphasised that honest and accurate self-understanding are the keys to self-improvement; that the intellect is capable of directing the emotional faculties; that an individual's overt behaviours and actions can influence his thoughts and emotions; that one should cultivate self-sufficiency and acceptance of one's circumstances; that all individuals have intrinsic and unalienable value as human beings; that happiness and unhappiness are internally caused; and finally, that immediate gratification is ultimately not reliable a source of self-fulfilment.     

A review of: “Suicide: The tragedy of hopelessness”

David Aldridge (1997) Suicide: the Tragedy of Hopelessness, London: Jessica Kingsley, $15.95     

A review of “Sociality lost: The schizophrenic's neurocognitive dilemma”

Abstract

The Cognitive Neuropsychology Of Schizophrenia By Christopher D. Frith. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1992, 169 pp.     

A review of: “The presentation of case material in clinical discourse”

Ivan Ward (ed.) (1997) The Presentation of Case Material in Clinical Discourse, London: Freud Museum Publications, 96 pp., $6.95     

A response to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given

In this paper I respond to Martina and Wimmer’s review of The Given, focusing on their criticisms of the awareness of awareness thesis.     

The “parts and wholes” of face recognition: A review of the literature

It has been claimed that faces are recognized as a “whole” rather than by the recognition of individual parts. In a paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1993, Martha Farah and I attempted to operationalize the holistic claim using the part/whole task. In this task, participants studied a face and then their memory presented in isolation and in the whole face. Consistent with the holistic view, recognition of the part was superior when tested in the whole-face condition compared to when it was tested in isolation. The “whole face” or holistic advantage was not found for faces that were inverted, or scrambled, nor for non-face objects, suggesting that holistic encoding was specific to normal, intact faces. In this paper, we reflect on the part/whole paradigm and how it has contributed to our understanding of what it means to recognize a face as a “whole” stimulus. We describe the value of part/whole task for developing theories of holistic and non-holistic recognition of faces and objects. We discuss the research that has probed the neural substrates of holistic processing in healthy adults and people with prosopagnosia and autism. Finally, we examine how experience shapes holistic face recognition in children and recognition of own- and other-race faces in adults. The goal of this article is to summarize the research on the part/whole task and speculate on how it has informed our understanding of holistic face processing.     

The philosophical–anthropological foundations of Bennett and Hacker’s critique of neuroscience

Bennett and Hacker criticize a number of neuroscientists and philosophers for attributing capacities which belong to the human being as a whole, like perceiving or deciding, to a “part” of the human being, viz. the brain. They call this type of mistake the “mereological fallacy”. Interestingly, the authors say that these capacities cannot be ascribed to the mind either. They reject not only materialistic monism but also Cartesian dualism, arguing that many predicates describing human life do not refer to physical or mental properties, nor to the sum of such properties. I agree with this important principle and with the critique of the mereological fallacy which it underpins, but I have two objections to the authors’ view. Firstly, I think that the brain is not literally a part of the human being, as suggested. Secondly, Bennett and Hacker do not offer an account of body and mind which explains in a systematic way how the domain of phenomena which transcends the mental and the physical relates to the mental and the physical. I first argue that Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology provides the kind of account we need. Then, drawing on Plessner, I present an alternative view of the mereological relationships between brain and human being. My criticism does not undercut Bennett and Hacker’s diagnosis of the mereological fallacy but rather gives it a more solid philosophical–anthropological foundation.     

The Moral-Psychology of the Common Agent – A Reply to Ido Geiger

Ido Geiger's paper ‘What it is the Use of the Universal Law Formula of the Categorical Imperative?’ is part of a growing trend in Kant scholarship, which stresses the significance of the rational competence of ordinary human beings. I argue that this approach needs to take into account that the common agent is an active reasoner who has the means to find out what she ought to do. The purpose of my paper is to show how universality already figures in the active reasoning of pre-theoretical agents in the form of a common universalization test. I present textual evidence for this test, and argue that this conception does not present pre-theoretical moral cognition in an overly intellectualistic or mechanistic way. Finally, I discuss how, on the pre-theoretical level, universalization relates to humanity or a rational agent's special status. Universalization is present to common agents in the form of procedures or questions that we ask ourselves, humanity as an awareness of certain particularly blatant violations of duty. These two different modes of cognition of duty are reflected in two different formulae of the Categorical Imperative.     

A review of: “Dementia reconsidered: The person comes first”

Tom Kitwood (1997) Dementia Reconsidered: the Person Comes First, Buckingham and Philadelphia: Open University Press, pp. 160, $14.99 (pb), $45.00 (hb)     

Replacement—A theory of stereotypy: A review

Three forms of stereotypy are described and an outline given of previous theories of simple stereotypy in the retarded and autistic. An alternative theory is put forward in which stereotypy is characterized as a replacement of unpalleatable stimuli and/or responses that are overloading the system in a way with which the individual cannot cope. Although the theory derives from cognitive psychology, it can also be expressed behaviorally or experientially without loss of impact. The manner in which replacement theory applies to the three types of stereotypy is described. Testable hypotheses are derived, predictions made, and implications considered. Finally, the more general ramifications of the theory are explored.     

The finitude of life—How mortality salience affects consumer behavior: A review

The influence of mortality salience (MS) on consumer behavior has been well-established over the last 25 years. However, research findings have provided divergent insights with regard to the direction of its outcomes. This article provides a systematic review of the extant research stream thereby revealing how the differences are primarily due to the conceptualization and operationalization of MS. Based on a conceptual revision of MS, we suggest an extended definition of the concept. An extensive overview of empirical findings, together with a holistic presentation of influential factors, offers a foundation for further MS studies conducted in a consumer behavior context, concluding with an extensive research agenda.     

The effects of mindfulness-based interventions for health and social care undergraduate students – a systematic review of the literature

Health and social care undergraduate students experience stress due to high workloads and pressure to perform. Consequences include depression and burnout. Mindfulness may be a suitable way to reduce stress in health and social care degree courses. The objective of this systematic review is to identify and critically appraise the literature on the effects of Mindfulness-Based Interventions for health and social care undergraduate students. PubMed, EMBASE, Psych Info, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library and Academic Search Complete were searched from inception to 21st November 2016. Studies that delivered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, or an intervention modelled closely on these, to health or social care undergraduate students were included. Eleven studies, representing medicine, nursing and psychology students met the inclusion criteria. The most commonly used measurement tools were; the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire. Short term benefits relating to stress and mood were reported, despite all but one study condensing the curriculum. Gender and personality emerged as factors likely to affect intervention results. Further research with long-term follow-up is required to definitively conclude that mindfulness is an appropriate intervention to mentally prepare health and social care undergraduate students for their future careers.     

A review of: “Acquiring a concept of mind: A review of psychological research and theory”

Peter Mitchell (1996) Acquiring a Concept of Mind: A Review of Psychological Research and Theory, Basingstoke: Taylor & Francis Psychology Press, $29.95     

The impact of rail-based stations on passengers’ safety perceptions. A systematic review of international evidence

Feeling safe in public transport is essential for mobility, and fear of crime can be a larger problem for the individual than crime itself. The aim of the present paper is to systematically review the international evidence in rail-bound environments regarding (a) characteristics impacting safety perceptions and (b) behavioural consequences of unsafety, using the databases ScienceDirect, Scopus, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar. From a selection of 3226 publications, 52 were selected. The sample sizes range from 16 to 137 513 rail users or potential users. A social-ecological framework was adopted to categorize the findings in which place, social, individual, and temporal characteristics were identified along with short-term and long-term behavioural consequences of unsafety. Among the most important characteristics affecting passengers’ safety are lighting, surveillance, other persons’ behaviour, time of day, and one’s own gender. Future studies should further explore the complexity in interactions between characteristics connected to perceived safety.     

The dynamics of purchasing an electric vehicle – A prospective longitudinal study of the decision-making process

This paper presents the results of a longitudinal prospective study which followed 113 people interested in the purchase of an electric vehicle for a period of two months. Based on an adapted stage model of self-regulated behavioral change (Bamberg, 2013b), a short online questionnaire with a stage diagnostic and the measurement of central model constructs was administered to the participants every second day. The analysis shows that 85% of transitions between the stages occur along the paths of the stage model. Stage transitions are preceded by increases in goal intentions and implementation intentions during the week before the transition. Intentions are predicted by most of the expected model constructs, but the effects were different on the between-person and the within-person level. The average stage durations are between two and three weeks. Implications of the study for research on stage models and practice are discussed.     

Dostoevskij in the eyes of Leont’ev. The foundations and consequences of different identities

There lies at the basis of Leont’ev’s conception a clear distinction and fundamental division of two primary dimensions and rhythms of reality: history and eschatology. In the light of this Leont’evian perspective Dostoevskij’s conception was interpreted and critically evaluated through the prism of the absence in it, and the lack of awareness of the consequence thereof, of a similar, fundamental distinction. The centrality of Dostoevskij in the Russian and intellectual cultural tradition is, among other things, tied to his acceptance of a series of fundamental and constitutive assumptions deeply rooted in a characteristic sphere of myths and illusions. The specificity of the place and significance of Leont’ev’s concepts within this tradition results from the fact that it takes a critical distance, giving thus the possibility of conceiving an essentially different problematization of the world extending beyond commonly established and naturalized obviousness of the principles and ‘prejudices’ of one’s own culture.     

The development of voicing categories: A quantitative review of over 40 years of infant speech perception research

Most research on infant speech categories has relied on measures of discrimination. Such work often employs categorical perception as a linking hypothesis to enable inferences about categorization on the basis of discrimination measures. However, a large number of studies with adults challenge the utility of categorical perception in describing adult speech perception, and this in turn calls into question how to interpret measures of infant speech discrimination. We propose here a parallel channels model of discrimination (built on Pisoni and Tash Perception & Psychophysics, 15(2), 285–290, 1974), which posits that both a noncategorical or veridical encoding of speech cues and category representations can simultaneously contribute to discrimination. This can thus produce categorical perception effects without positing any warping of the acoustic signal, but it also reframes how we think about infant discrimination and development. We test this model by conducting a quantitative review of 20 studies examining infants’ discrimination of voice onset time contrasts. This review suggests that within-category discrimination is surprisingly prevalent even in classic studies and that, averaging across studies, discrimination is related to continuous acoustic distance. It also identifies several methodological factors that may mask our ability to see this. Finally, it suggests that infant discrimination may improve over development, contrary to commonly held notion of perceptual narrowing. These results are discussed in terms of theories of speech development that may require such continuous sensitivity.