Mother—infant interaction structures and presymbolic self‐ and object representations

Using research on the purely social face‐to‐face exchange, we examine patterns of mother—infant interaction and their relevance for the presymbolic origins of self and object representations, focusing on the representation of inter‐relatedness between self and object. Based on a dyadic systems view in which the system is defined by both self‐ and interactive‐regulation processes, we argue that characteristic patterns of self and interactive regulation form early interaction structures, which provide an important basis for emerging self and object representations. What will be represented, presymbolically, is the dynamic interactive process itself, the interplay, as each partner influences the other from moment to moment. This is a dynamic, process view of “interactive”; or “dyadic”; representations. The argument that early interaction structures organize experience is based on a transformational model in which there are continuous transformations and restructurings, where development is in a constant state of active reorganization. To define the capacities on which a presymbolic representational capacity is based, we review the last decade's research on infant perception and memory, which has radically changed our concepts of representation. The interaction structures we describe illustrate the salience of arousal, affect, space, and time in the early organization of experience: (1) state transforming, the expectation that an arousal state can be transformed through the contribution of the partner; (2) facial mirroring, the expectation of matching and being matched in the direction of affective change; (3) disruption and repair, the expectation of degree of ease and rapidity of interactive repair following facial‐visual mismatches; (4) “chase and dodge,”; the expectation of the misregulation and derailment of spatial‐orientation patterns, without repair; and (5) interpersonal timing, the expectation of degree of vocal rhythm matching.     

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION,RITUAL HEALING,AND ALTRUISM

Based on studies of spirit healing in Puerto Rico and the United States, this essay proposes a model of ritual healing process focused on the core components of spiritual transformation and empathy. It describes the central role of spiritual transformation in healers from which emerges their capacity for relation, empathy, and altruism. Many spirit healers, following a spiritual transformation, begin to exercise what I label here radical empathy, in which individual differences between healer and sufferer are melded into one field of feeling and experience. This produces a type of altruism in which spirit healers feel compelled to be altruistic in responding to suffering whenever they encounter it. The model is compared and contrasted with aspects of healing process in some psychotherapeutic and analytic therapies. These comparisons are offered in the light of the growing interest in incorporating spirituality into psychological and medical treatments.     

Altruism and the Resolution of the Transference Resistance: Partners in Clinical Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

The article is devoted to the central place of altruism in clinical psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Using an experiential-subjective perspective, I demonstrate how I overcame an inhibition in utilizing altruism in my theoretical and clinical work, which then reduced barriers against working with the experience of vitality, closeness, and creativity for my patients and myself. I then could follow the importance of resolving the transference resistance against consolidating the experience and functioning of the self or person. At this time, altruism has also become a subject of interest in several fields that deal with human and animal behavior such as evolutionary science, social biology, and anthropology. Psychoanalysis, with its special subjective and experimental perspectives, can make valuable contributions in these realms of knowledge and research.     

A comparison of dyadic interactions and coping with still‐face in healthy pre‐term and full‐term infants

Pre‐term birth has a significant impact on infants' social and emotional competence, however, little is known about regulatory processes in pre‐term mother‐infant dyads during normal or stressful interactions. The primary goals of this study were to investigate the differences in infant and caregiver interactive behaviour and dyadic coordination of clinically healthy pre‐term compared to full‐term infant‐mother dyads and to examine pre‐term infants' capacity for coping with stress using the face‐to‐face still‐face paradigm (FFSF). Fifty mother‐infant dyads, including 25 pre‐term infants and 25 full‐term infants were videotaped during the FFSF. All infants were 6–9 months of age (corrected for gestational age in the pre‐term group). Infant and maternal socio‐emotional expressivity and self‐regulatory behaviours were coded and measures of dyadic coordination (Matching, Reparation Rate, and Synchrony) were calculated. There were no significant differences in infant and caregiver socio‐emotional behaviours between the two groups and both groups demonstrated the still‐face (SF) effect and the reunion effect. There was a difference in self‐regulatory behaviour. Pre‐term infants were more likely than full‐term infants to use distancing (e.g., by turning away, twisting, or arching) from their mothers during the FFSF. Additionally, during the Reunion episode of the FFSF pre‐term infants showed more social monitoring compared to full‐term infants. Regardless of the birth status, the dyads showed less coordination and a slower rate of reparation during the Reunion episode than during the Play episode. The higher proportion of distancing in the pre‐term group and the increase in social monitoring suggest that even in normal interactions pre‐term infants may experience a higher level of stress and have less capacity for self‐regulation compared to the full‐terms and that pre‐term infants appear to use a compensatory strategy of increased social monitoring to cope with the stress of renegotiating the interaction during Reunion. The findings suggest that pre‐term infants have different regulatory and interactive capacities than full‐term infants.     

Investigation concerning the possibility of rational ethics

Ethical behavior such as self‐sacrifice and striving for juistice—the natural striving for a general prosperity for humans—is not mainly learned but is carried by a natural altruism from one generation to the next. It is based on group (rather than individual) altruism which has concentrated on protection of the aged (as preservers of knowledge) and the young (as preservers of future generations).

It is proposed that the strongest possible nature form of community is the “amorisation community"—in effect, one in which love produces more love. A case is presented for the creation of a world scientific and cultural transformation based on the ethics of the “amorisation community.”     

ALTRUISM AND THE GOLDEN RULE

This essay addresses recent claims about the compatibility of the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism with standard Western formulations of the Golden Rule. Derek Parfit claims that the theory of reciprocal altruism teaches us to be “reciprocal altruists,” who benefit only those people from whom we can reasonably expect benefits in the future. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, teaches us to benefit anyone regardless of their intention or ability to return the favor, or as Parfit puts it, the Golden Rule teaches us to be “suckers.” I argue that this distinction is founded on a misconception of the nature of the theory of reciprocal altruism, which is sociobiological as opposed to moral, and that this distinction accordingly confuses is with ought. Sociobiological theories may explain underlying psychological motivations in individuals (and perhaps even in populations), but these theories do not prescribe any sort of moral behavior. Furthermore, the theory of reciprocal altruism does not imply mental states of which agents are aware. The unconscious motivations assumed by this theory are in fact compatible with certain formulations of the Golden Rule; I will accordingly argue for the view that certain words with moral content related to the Golden Rule—such as “altruism” and “selfishness”—exist only insofar as they are social tools, which can further the self‐interests of an individual in any group.     

Eighteen‐month‐old infants show distinct electrophysiological responses to their own faces

Infants attain the developmental milestone of self‐recognition around 18 to 24 months of age. At 18 months of age, half of the infant population typically shows signs of self‐recognition in the classic mirror test. The current study examined the functional neural correlates of the perception of self in infancy. Eighteen‐month‐old infants observed photographs of their own face, the face of an unfamiliar infant, the face of their caregiver, and the face of an unfamiliar caregiver, while their EEG was registered. The results show that infants show an enhanced response to their own face compared to other faces. The N290, an established face‐selective ERP component in infants, was larger for observation of their own face compared to others’ faces. In addition to the EEG task, the mirror test was administered. Half of the infants in our sample recognized themselves in the mirror. However, there were no differences in the ERP responses between the infants who did and did not recognize themselves in the mirror. This suggests that a distinction between the neural response to self and to others does not necessarily express itself in self‐recognition behavior.     

The You-I event: on the genesis of self-awareness

I present empirical evidence suggesting that an infant first becomes aware of herself as the focal center of a caregiver's attending. Yet that does not account for her awareness of herself as agent. To address this question, I bring in research on neonatal imitation, as well as studies demonstrating the existence of a neural system in which parts of the same brain areas are activated when observing another's action and when executing a similar one. Applying these findings, I consider gestural exchanges between infant and caregiver, such as reciprocal smiles and imitative vocalizations. Lacking self-awareness at first, the infant is unaware of her own agency. By returning her unwitting gesture, the caregiver singles out for her—thanks to neural matching—the gesture's kinesthesis. Moreover, the caregiver's smile, imitative vocalization, or other gesture is the form that focusing takes. The kinesthesis of the infant's gesture, in being singled out, is experienced by the infant as what the caregiver is focusing on. It is experienced as being within the focal center. In this way, the infant becomes aware of herself as a bodily entity acting toward the caregiver. Exchanges that involve matching are at first essential, I argue, in making the infant present to herself in action. Matching will cease to be necessary, but self-awareness continues to depend fundamentally on others until the acquisition of language, when the child becomes capable of talking to herself as if she were the caregiver.     

Workplace Helping: Interactive Effects of Personality and Momentary Positive Affect

We investigated interactions between positive affect and personality (empathy and altruism) as predictors of workplace helping. We conducted an experience sampling study with 80 participants, each of whom completed personality instruments and responded to a maximum of 5 electronic surveys per day for 5 workdays. This approach allowed us to study relationships over time between momentary positive affect and workplace helping behavior. We found that affect's relationship with later helping depended on the personality trait of altruism. We also found evidence that the relationship was reciprocal—helping others lead to increased positive affect, but again the relationship depended on altruism.     

CULTIVATING LOVING KINDNESS: A TWO‐STAGE MODEL OF THE EFFECTS OF MEDITATION ON EMPATHY,COMPASSION, AND ALTRUISM

Abstract. We explore the role of meditative practice in cultivating experiences of compassion, empathy, and altruism and address an apparent paradox: Meditation often is associated with solitary retreat, if not preoccupation with one's own concerns. How, then, does such a practice promote compassion for others? We propose a two‐stage model. The first stage involves disengagement from usual preoccupation with self‐reinforcing, self‐defeating, or self‐indulgent behaviors and reactions; the second involves a focused engagement with a universal human capacity for altruistic experience, love, and compassion. Reference is made to the limited research literature and to clinical applications of loving kindness (metta) meditation in cultivating these processes.     

The impact of the health professional on the individual's experience of cancer: A psychodynamic perspective

Abstract

This paper examines how interactions with health professionals may come to influence the patient's experience of cancer. It considers the idea that the experience of cancer returns an individual to a state of dependence and lack of integration similar to that of the young infant. The subsequent interactions with health professionals can then be considered in light of its ability to hold the patient's un-integrated self and facilitate its re-integration.     

Relational Desires and Empirical Evidence against Psychological Egoism

Abstract: Roughly, psychological egoism is the thesis that all of a person's intentional actions are ultimately self‐interested in some sense; psychological altruism is the thesis that some people's intentional actions are ultimately other‐regarding in some sense. C. Daniel Batson and other social psychologists have argued that there are experiments that provide support for a theory called the ‘empathy‐altruism hypothesis’, which entails the falsity of psychological egoism. However, several critics claim that there are egoistic explanations of the data that are still not ruled out. One of the most potent criticisms of Batson comes from Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson. I argue for two main theses in this paper: (1) we can improve on Sober and Wilson's conception of psychological egoism and altruism, and (2) this improvement shows that one of the strongest of Sober and Wilson's purportedly egoistic explanations is not tenable. A defense of these two theses goes some way toward defending Batson's claim that the evidence from social psychology provides sufficient reason to reject psychological egoism.     

Humanistic psychologists decline to be guests in the medical household

Abstract

It is theorized that affirmation of the self by another makes it possible for the self to know itself, be the author of its own discourse, genuinely listen to another, move toward another as in empathy, as well as experience having another person live within one's self. Affirmation, moreover, allows one to distinguish between the self and sources of self‐satisfaction, and take responsibility for another, thereby preventing premeditated violent acts, which it is argued, are the product of dis‐affirmations of the self. The birth of affirmation, it is postulated, derives from the gaze of the other, the domain, as Levinas stated, of concrete existence. It is here that a person is granted his or her right, simply, to be.     

Intellectual humility and prosocial values: Direct and mediated effects

Abstract

Research has established links between humility and prosocial outcomes. This study examined, with self-report data, whether humility with regard to one’s knowledge would be predictive of prosocial values. Consistent with hypotheses, intellectual humility was associated with higher levels of empathy, gratitude, altruism, benevolence, and universalism, and lower levels of power seeking. Analyses supported empathy and gratitude as mediators between intellectual humility and prosocial values. These findings leave open the possibility that intellectual humility may be a precursor to links previously established between empathy and gratitude and prosocial outcomes. Characteristics of intellectual humility such as recognizing one’s cognitive limits, having a non-defensive stance toward one’s beliefs, and respecting others’ viewpoints may put one in a unique position to experience empathy and gratitude, and by extension, a host of prosocial values. Future research would be required to examine whether intellectual humility is a possible point of intervention for promoting positive social interactions.     

Empathy,Respect, and Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

This paper reconsiders Heather Battaly’s argument that empathy is not a virtue. Like Battaly, I argue that empathy is a disposition that includes elements of virtue acquisition, but is not in itself a virtue in the Aristotelian sense. Unlike Battaly, however, I propose a distinction between care and respect. Drawing on Darwall’s view of recognition respect as well as on phenomenologically inspired views of empathy, I argue that respect can be regarded as the moral feeling that is distinctive of empathy. In my view, the feeling of respect towards another’s situated experience grants epistemic dignity, which is the recognition of the intrinsic significance of subjective experience. By way of conclusion, I suggest that the relation between empathy and respect can be relevant for an account of vulnerability that is not opposed to autonomy.     

Infant gaze following depends on communicative signals: An eye‐tracking study of 5‐ to 7‐month‐olds in Vanuatu

Gaze is considered a crucial component of early communication between an infant and her caregiver. When communicatively addressed, infants respond aptly to others’ gaze by following its direction. However, experience with face‐to‐face contact varies across cultures, begging the question whether infants’ competencies in receiving others’ communicative gaze signals are universal or culturally specific . We used eye‐tracking to assess gaze‐following responses of 5‐ to 7‐month olds in Vanuatu, where face‐to‐face parent–infant interactions are less prevalent than in Western populations. We found that—just like Western 6‐month‐olds studied previously—5‐ to ‐7‐month‐olds living in Vanuatu followed gaze only, when communicatively addressed. That is, if presented gaze shifts were preceded by infant‐directed speech, but not if they were preceded by adult‐directed speech. These results are consistent with the notion that early infant gaze following is tied to infants’ early emerging communicative competencies and rooted in universal mechanisms rather than being dependent on cultural specificities of early socialization.     

Empathy‐induced altruism in a prisoner's dilemma II: what if the target of empathy has defected?

What if participants in a one‐trial prisoner's dilemma know before making their decision that the other person has already defected? From the perspective of classic game theory, a dilemma no longer exists. It is clearly in their best interest to defect too. The empathy‐altruism hypothesis predicts, however, that if they feel empathy for the other, then a dilemma remains: self‐interest counsels defection; empathy‐induced altruism counsels not. This motivational conflict should lead at least some empathically aroused individuals not to defect. To test this prediction, we placed 60 undergraduate women in a one‐trial prisoner's dilemma in which they knew the other had already defected. Among those not induced to feel empathy, very few (0.05) did not defect in return. Among those induced to feel empathy for the other, almost half (0.45) did not defect. These results underscore the power of empathy‐induced altruism to affect responses in a prisoner's dilemma. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When “who we are” and “who I desire to be” appear disconnected: Introducing collective/personal self‐discrepancies and investigating their relations with minority students' psychological health

According to Self‐Discrepancy Theory research, perceiving mismatches between personal aspects of the self‐concept is associated with negative psychological consequences, including depression and anxiety. However, the impact of perceiving mismatches between collective and personal self‐aspects is still unknown. In a first step to address this gap, we introduce collective/personal self‐discrepancies—perceived mismatches between a desired self‐aspect and a collective identity. For cultural minority group members (n = 147), collective/personal self‐discrepancies were associated with more severe anxiety and depression symptoms. Bootstrapping analyses suggest that these relations are mediated by self‐discrepancies experienced at the personal level, but only for group members presenting average or high levels of ethnic identification. This study reaffirms the importance of collective identities, especially as potential antecedents of personal aspects of the self‐concept. The findings are further discussed in terms of their significance for cultural minority group members, who often highly identify with their minority groups.     

In Concert and Alone: Divorce and Congregational Experience

Sociologists have paid little attention to the experience of divorce in religious congregations. Numerous quantitative studies suggest that religion can provide health and wellness during such life disruptions, but we know little about the social and individual processes that might foster these benefits. I address this gap in the literature drawing from data collected in a four‐year ethnographic study of divorce and ending life partnerships across six religious traditions. I analyze the experiences of 41 individuals who ended life partnerships while active in their congregations. Despite intense points of communal connection through ritual, respondents named largely private strategies for settling heightened emotion, physical and psychological pain, and creating a new self. Permeating their communal experiences was a marked sense of aloneness, resulting from individual shame and congregational silence, as well as their understanding of divorce‐work as ultimately private self‐work.     

Transcendental empathy in the therapeutic encounter

Abstract

The experience of many therapists suggest that most contemporary conceptions of empathy underestimate empathic potential. This paper describes deep or transcendental empathy as a more direct knowing of the client's world. The author examines the epistemic process or the activity of knowing of transcendental empathy by considering two broad forms: transcendental countertransference and psychological resonance. Difficulties and distortions are explored as well as characteristics of an individual that correspond with deep empathy.