音乐愉悦体验的神经机制

愉悦情绪体验是音乐活动中最普遍的心理现象。通过系统回顾相关的神经科学研究, 认为音乐愉悦体验与大脑奖赏系统的活动有关, 并涉及伏隔核与听觉皮层等其他脑区的交互。在这个过程中, 多巴胺的传递与音乐愉悦体验存在因果联系。基于预期视角, 奖赏预测误差理论和音乐信息理论模型可以解释音乐愉悦体验的产生机制。未来研究应进一步检验伏隔核及各皮层在音乐愉悦体验中的功能, 并整合不同的预期理论。     

忧乐圆融：儒家忧乐思想的核心特质

儒家肯定感性忧乐的自然合理性,但是认为感性忧乐有待于外,陷溺于感性忧乐,容易使人流于以物役心的异化状态。儒家忧乐思想的根本形态是德性忧乐,德性忧乐的根据是本心自足之德性。儒家以德性之忧作为德行修养的内在心理动力,德性之乐是在德性彰明过程中本心情感的自然涌现,可以统摄和超越感性忧乐,实现忧乐圆融。     

Dynamics of the knowledge instinct: Effects of incoherence on the cognitive system

We successfully replicated a study about aesthetic emotions in a different socio-cultural environment. The present results suggest that incoherence is a strong inhibitor for aesthetic chills and verify a positive correlation between pleasure and meaning. These results allow for a scientific study of aesthetic emotions as it is now possible for the experimenter to have two groups of subjects, both exposed to the same stimulation, one group experiencing measurable aesthetic emotions whereas the other does not. We review the literature on the problem of both positive and negative psychogenic shivering and relate this phenomenon to the instinct of knowledge. We discuss the implications of our findings, stress the importance of studying the psychological and physiological effects of incoherence on the central nervous system, introduce a series of hypotheses to be tested in further research and conclude with a plausible explanation for the relation between temperature and cognition in humans.     

消费者决策分析的新视角:双通道心理账户理论

双通道心理账户是指人们在购买决策时具有一个双向通道的心理账户,其中一个通道记录了付款后消费者剩余的正效用,而另一个通道则记录了除去消费后付款带来的负效用.当消费与支付联结紧密时,会让人们更易想起支付的痛苦,从而降低消费快感,此时快乐弱化系数(α)大;当消费与支付联结较弱时,人们更不易记起支付的金额,从而在消费时拥有更多快乐,此时痛苦钝化系数(β)大.文章通过整理已有研究发现:先付款后消费的α系数更小,而先消费后付款的β系数更小;奢侈品的α系数更大,而必需品的β系数更大;吝啬者的α系数更大,而挥霍者的β系数更大.文章进一步阐述了影响消费者购买联结的心理机制是债务规避和负的时间偏好、支付贬值等.在此基础上为消费者做出购买决策以及商家选择促销方式提出了建议.同时也为消费者决策行为研究提供了新的视角和研究课题.     

Beauty: Neglected,but alive and kicking

This article is a commentary on ‘Ten years of a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments: The aesthetic episode – developments and challenges in empirical aesthetics’ (Leder & Nadal, 2014, this issue). It focuses on the importance of beauty in aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments. Beauty is considered as a formal inherent property of visual stimuli that has the potential to elicit visual pleasure by direct sensory stimulation. It is argued that any comprehensive model of aesthetic experience must account fully for cognitive aspects of aesthetics (cultural, conceptual, psychological, and individual factors) as well as intrinsic properties of beautiful visual stimuli and how they relate to basic mechanisms of visual perception, which are universal among humans.     

Beyond Pregenital Determination of Femininity and Masculinity (Discussion)1

Abstract

The authors investigate the relationship between the concept of functional pleasure as defined by Fenichel and a number of other psychoanalytic concepts. Considered in the light of this concept, the pleasure–unpleasure principle as defined by Freud is to be distinguished in terms of a pleasure principle and a principle of avoiding unpleasure. These are then reunified in the sense of an unpleasure–functional pleasure principle, to which the substitutive formations of the repressed are subjected. It is argued that, in the realization of substitutive formations of repressed genital–sexual instinctual wishes, the intentional erogenous pleasure changes into a functional pleasure, in which a successful defence finds its experiential expression.     

Pleasure,Arousal, Dominance: Mehrabian and Russell revisited

This paper presents a discursive review of the dimensions pleasure, arousal and dominance that Mehrabian and Russell developed in 1974 to assess environmental perception, experience, and psychological responses. Since then numerous researchers applied these dimensions to assess the experience of the physical environment and its perceived qualities. Although the dimensions appeared to be useful, there is a long-lasting debate going on among environmental psychologists about the interpretation of pleasure, arousal and dominance and its underlying mechanisms. Due to the lack of clarity researchers use different adjectives to describe environmental experiences, which makes any comparison between research findings difficult. This paper shows that the three dimensions can be linked to the current ABC Model of Attitudes: pleasure, arousal and dominance can be respectively related to affective, cognitive and conative responses, i.e. Affect, Cognition and Behaviour (ABC). In addition, connecting the three dimensions to the triad feeling, thinking and acting, can also help to improve our understanding, interpretation and measurement of pleasure, arousal and dominance. Based on this review, it is proposed to re-introduce the three dimensions and to replace the nowadays often used two dimensional model with pleasure and arousal by a three dimensional model, including dominance as a third dimension, to represent the complete range of human responses.     

Psychological capital as a team phenomenon: Mediating the relationship between learning climate and outcomes at the individual and team levels

Psychological capital is a positive psychological state that influences employees’ behaviors and attitudes. Research has only recently begun to examine the phenomenon as a shared psychological team state. The purpose of this research is to examine the mediating role of team psychological capital in the relationship between learning climate and outcomes at the individual and team levels. The findings, which were carried out among 82 school management teams, indicated a positive relationship between learning climate and the team’s psychological capital, and between the team’s psychological capital and the individual’s job satisfaction and the team’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It was also found that team’s psychological capital mediates the relationship between the team’s learning climate and job satisfaction, and between learning mechanisms and the team’s OCB. The findings might encourage research into psychological capital as a team phenomenon and encourage decision-makers to develop ways of reinforcing psychological capital among teams.     

幸福是什么

幸福概念深刻而复杂,我们可以在且个层次上把握幸福概念。首先,幸福是人生重大的快乐;进一步说,是人生重大需要和欲望得到满足的心理体验,是人生重大目的得到实现的心理体验;最终是达到生存和发展的某种完满的心理体验。     

Art as Orientation

What is it that we lack in everyday life that causes us to value art so highly? This article argues that (almost) all values are to be understood in terms of a needs‐satisfaction system, and hence that the value of art can be understood only with reference to the state of the appreciator prior to engagement with the artwork. Aesthetic appreciation can be analysed as a process, which can be described in empirically based psychological terms, leading to a functional view of aesthetic experience as potentially enhancing the individual's orientation at sensory, cognitive, and interpersonal levels; our motivation is a special form of pleasure. Various objections are then considered, with particular attention to the role of pleasure in connection with tragedy; the relation of art to related cultural pursuits is also briefly indicated.     

Social concomitants of cognitive mastery in Down's syndrome infants

Smiling as an index of cognitive mastery was examined in a study of seven infants clinically diagnosed as having Down's syndrome. The subjects were administered the Uzgiris-Hunt scales of infant psychological development on five occasions over a four month period of time, and their smiling responses to their successful and unsuccessful completion of the items administered were coded. Two hypothesis derived from J. McVicker Hunt's theory of intrinsic motivation were tested: (a) sense of pleasure derived from successful solutions would be greater than to tasks not solved correctly, and (b) sense of pleasure to optimally challenging tasks would be greater than to tasks which could be solved easily. The findings provided support for the first but not the second prediction. The results are interpreted in terms of similarities and differences found in the present and previous investigations, and the implications of the findings are discussed.     

Suffering and interpersonal meaning: commentary

I would like to suggest that to describe suffering as a psychological phenomenon is still too general. It leaves the door open to the belief that suffering is an individual phenomenon, experienced because of dynamics arising out of the individual psyche as the pain arises out of the individual body. Instead of describing suffering as a psychological phenomenon, we should describe it as an interpersonal, even communal phenomenon....If the task of reestablishing, continuing, and creating interpersonal meaning within the context of suffering is accepted, the problem often arises concerning how the health professional can accomplish this task with the patient under the extraordinary circumstances that pain and illness, as well as the health-care environment, provide. Beyond sensitive and thoughtful dialogue, we may have to return to a sense of ceremony within health care, especially since the rationalistic naiveté of nineteenth-century positivism did so much to encourage the belief that the best health care is the one that does things efficiently and "unceremoniously"....     

Eros and wholeness

It is suggested that the direction for resolving the current normative confusion regarding the place of sexuality in our lives lies in understanding it as a manifestation of Eros. Eros is revealed to be the desire for wholeness. In order for Eros to achieve its aim, therefore, we must respect the whole fabric of life. This respect is manifest when the connections between Eros and six different facets of life are held intact and thereby enhanced. These six facets are (1) pleasure, (2) human relationship, (3) procreation, (4) family, (5) psychological growth, and (6) spiritual growth. The nature of each of these connections is briefly discussed.     

Psychological testing with transsexuals: a 30-year review

This paper critically reviews over 30 years of psychological testing of transsexualism, during which time 41 studies have been published. A review of the psychological tests and methodology employed, the search for an adequate control group, and an analysis of the findings are presented. It is argued that we have reached a critical point in transsexual research. Researchers must reconsider the "hit or miss" approach to psychological testing with transsexuals and relate psychological testing to the actual clinical phenomenon of transsexualism; addressing the newer conceptualizations of transsexualism as a variant of borderline pathology.     

Sex in the Head

Abstract Recent philosophical writing on sexual desire divides broadly into two camps. Reductionists take sexual desire to aim at an essentially physical bodily pleasure, whereas intentionalist accounts take a focus upon the reciprocal interaction of the mental states of the partners to be crucial for understanding the phenomenon. I argue that the apparent plausibility of reductionism rests upon the flawed assumption that sexual pleasure has the same uniform bodily character in all sexual encounters, which rests in turn upon flawed assumptions in the philosophy of mind. Drawing on an Aristotelian understanding of persons as essentially embodied minds, I outline an alternative account of sexual desire, showing how the nature of the sexual pleasure we take in the body of another can be transformed by the significance the person or situation has for us. I proceed to show that my account of sexual desire is able to accommodate the entire range of sexual phenomena, including those that seem to undermine standard intentionalist accounts as well as those that reductionists have difficulty in fully explaining. Finally I make some brief remarks about the implications of my account of sexual desire for sexual morality, suggesting some reasons why it casts doubt on the view that universal participant consent is sufficient for a sexual act to be morally unproblematic.     

Learned liking versus inborn delight: can sweetness give sensual pleasure or is it just motivating?

In this study, we separated for the first time the learned liking for a particular level of sweetness in a familiar drink from the infantile delight in sweetness as such ("the sweeter, the better"). It is widely assumed that sensing a liked food or drink evokes a pleasurable experience, but the only psychological evidence for this assumption has been tongue movements that are elicited specifically by sweet taste in animals and human neonates. We found that adults felt such movements in response to drinking juice at both their personally preferred level of sweetness and levels they deemed so sweet as to be undrinkable. Yet only the intolerably strong level of sweetness elicited enjoyment of the experienced movements, elevation of mood, and a sense of smiling. Hence, the pleasure that adults experience during ingestion could be exclusively linked with the congenital sweetness reflex that sends mother's milk down an infant's throat.     

Le collectif de travail : une protection pour la santé psychologique d’éducateurs d’ateliers industriels en milieu carcéral

Using data from a survey conducted in Psychodynamic of Work in a maximum security penitentiary with monitors of industrial workshops, this paper proposes an understanding of the impact of organizational constraints on the psychological health. This qualitative study shows that the situation faced by these workers produces significant sources of suffering for example, work prevented, oppositions between different groups of workers, rough social relationships, fears and dangers). Few sources of pleasure, based on the team relationship, the challenge of rehabilitation of prisoners and the satisfaction of making quality products. The study identified various defensive strategies to counter the suffering at work. Finally, the discussion focuses on the importance of collective work as a means of protecting psychological health.     

The Value of Heterogeneous Pleasures

Pleasure is one of the most obvious candidates for directly improving wellbeing. Hedonists claim it is the only feature that can intrinsically make life better for the one living it, and that all of wellbeing derives from the relative pleasantness and unpleasantness of conscious experience. But Hedonism is incompatible with the ‘heterogeneity’ of pleasure: it cannot allow that distinct pleasures can feel completely differently, if experiences count as pleasant due to how they feel. I argue that a pluralistic variant of Hedonism can match its theoretical attractions while also accommodating the heterogeneity of pleasure. This has interesting implications for both the philosophical debate over the nature of wellbeing and psychological theories of how to measure and aggregate positive affect. In particular, my argument implies that there is no single dimension of ‘valence’ or ‘intensity’ on which pleasantness can be measured.     

Kant and the Pleasure of “Mere Reflection”

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant refers to the pleasure that we feel when judging that an object is beautiful as the pleasure of “mere reflection”. Yet Kant never makes explicit what exactly is the relationship between the activity of “mere reflection” and the feeling of pleasure. I discuss several contemporary accounts of the pleasure of taste and argue that none of them is fully accurate, since, in each case, they leave open the possibility that one can reflect without having a feeling of pleasure, and hence allow a possible skepticism of taste. I then present my own account, which can better explain why Kant thinks that when one reflects one must also have a feeling of pleasure. My view, which emphasizes the role of attention in Kant, depicts well what we do when we judge something to be beautiful. It can also suggest a way to explain the relation between judgments of taste and moral feeling, and begin to show how the faculty of feeling fills a gap in the system of our cognitive faculties.     

Life satisfaction and perception of happiness among university students

The aim of this essay has been the evaluation of three orientations towards happiness: pleasure, meaning and engagement, as well as their relation to life satisfaction and the perception of happiness in a sample of 320 university students. The results show that the most used kind of orientation towards happiness is pleasure, followed by meaning, and finally engagement. It has also been found that pleasure is the orientation most closely associated to happiness while engagement seems to be more related to life satisfaction. These findings aim to the distinction between the concepts of happiness and life satisfaction and lead the attention to the actions which can improve the levels of happiness.