Myths, models, and metaphors: Religion as model and the philosophy of science

Clifford Geertz's widely-used paper ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, makes the claim that ‘the importance of religion lies in its capacity to serve … as a source of general, yet distinctive conceptions of the world, the self and the relations between them …—its model of aspect—and of rooted, no less distinctive “mental” dispositions—its model for aspect’. However, apart from a highly critical article by Nancy Frankenberry and Hans Penner (1999) little attempt has been made to investigate this understanding of religion as model. This paper briefly considers the validity of Frankenberry and Penner's criticism and investigates possible applications of the elaborate analysis of models and metaphors in the philosophy of science since the time of Mary Hesse to the analysis of religious phenomena.     

The role of perceived control in overcoming defensive self-evaluation

Two experiments investigated how perceived control over one’s abilities and one’s perceived standing on these abilities affect feedback seeking. Two aspects of perceived control were studied: Experiment 1 focused on perceived control over the expression of one’s ability in performance, whereas Experiment 2 focused on perceived changeability of the ability itself. The results of the two experiments showed that to the extent that participants’ perceived ability was low, both aspects of perceived control increased interest in negative feedback—feedback that diagnoses weaknesses—and decreased interest in positive feedback—feedback that diagnoses strengths. Mediation analyses showed that the effects of perceived ability and perceived control on feedback seeking were mediated by the subjective informational value of the feedback as well as its esteem-related affective value. These results were interpreted as evidence for pragmatic feedback seeking—a process that flexibly integrates immediate emotional value and long-term usefulness of self-relevant information.     

Decision-making in robotics and psychology: A distributed account

Decision-making is usually a secondary topic in psychology, relegated to the last chapters of textbooks. The psychological study of decision-making assumes a certain conception of its nature and mechanisms that has been shown wrong by research in robotics. Robotics indicate that decision-making is not—or at least not only—an intellectual task, but also a process of dynamic behavioral control, mediated by embodied and situated sensorimotor interaction. The implications of this conception for psychology are discussed.     

The Brain and Development of Function

Neurobiological and functional development are discontinuous. The interrelationships between identifiable morphological processes and the developmental course of functional display are astonishingly weak. One of the first persons who tried to find a solution for this problem was McGraw. This paper takes up some of her ideas and develops them in the light of present knowledge. A plea is made for variability as the basic characteristic of normal development. Variability results from the fact that the normal brain is an active organ system which handles stimulations voluntarily. The brain's action/reaction ratio determines its functional integrity. During development variability has two aspects. One denotes the ability to construct pluriform strategies—primary variability—and the second the ability to select the proper strategy in any particular situation—adaptive variability. A damaged nervous system is characterized by a shift of the action/reaction ratio to the reactive side resulting in a decrease of variability and an inability to deal adequately with environmental changes. Issues like variations between and within individual infants and regressions of functional ability as features of normal—neurobiological—development were already recognized by McGraw as signs of nature/nurture interaction at a time in which neurobehavioral development was still considered to be a strictly maturational process. Her interpretation of behavioral development in terms of neurobiological processes stands at the cradle of modern insight.     

Students' complex problem-solving abilities: Their structure and relations to reasoning ability and educational success

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) is considered to be a promising candidate for capturing higher order thinking skills that are emphasized in new educational curricula but are not adequately measured by traditional intelligence tests. However, little is known about its psychometric structure and its exact relation to intelligence and educational success—especially in student populations. This study is among the first to use a large and representative sample of secondary school students (N = 563) to examine different measurement models of CPS—that conceptualize the construct as either faceted or hierarchical—and their implications for the construct's validity. Results showed that no matter which way it was conceptualized, CPS was substantially related to reasoning and to different indicators of educational success. Controlling for reasoning within a joint hierarchical measurement model, however, revealed that the impressive external validity was largely attributable to the variance that CPS shares with reasoning, suggesting that CPS has only negligible incremental validity over and above traditional intelligence scales. On the basis of these results, the value of assessing CPS within the educational context is discussed.     

The impact of career boundarylessness on subjective career success: The role of career competencies, career autonomy, and career insecurity

Based on the theoretical frameworks of the career enactment and the stress perspectives, this study develops and tests a model in which career boundarylessness affects subjective career success through its effect on three career competencies—knowing-why, knowing-how, and knowing-whom—and career autonomy and career insecurity. The results provided empirical support for the importance of career autonomy, career insecurity, and the development of knowing-why and knowing-how competencies in the successful pursuit of a boundaryless career. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Study of Values: Construction of the fourth edition

Some forty years after its initial publication, the Allport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values (SOV) was the third most cited non-projective measure of personality in the field of psychology. However, by the early 1980s the measure had fallen into disuse, in large part—we argue—due to its increasingly archaic content, lack of religious inclusiveness, and dated language. We describe the development of an updated version of the SOV that incorporates modifications to 15 out of the 45 original items. One hundred and seventy-nine students completed both the original and updated versions (counter-balanced for order). Psychometric properties of the updated and original scales were comparable and acceptable. Rationales for use of the updated version in research and practice are advanced.     

Normative pluralism: Islam, religion and law in the twenty-first century

Four new books on Islam and law provide the occasion for reflection on legal and religious pluralism. Bringing together a more nuanced and complex understanding of religion — one not determined by Enlightenment ideologies of separation — and of law — one also freed of Enlightenment notions of positivism and secularism — provide opportunities for ways to re-think the cultures of normative pluralism.     

Behavioral ethics for Homo economicus,Homo heuristicus,and Homo duplex

In this article we explore how assumptions about human nature may influence the ways one might try to promote ethical behavior in organizations. We summarize two common views of human nature in organizational research—Homo economicus and Homo heuristicus. We then extend these views by putting forward a third view of human nature initially proposed by Emile Durkheim—Homo duplex—which describes human beings as moving back and forth between a lower (individual) and higher (collective) level. We suggest that the Homo duplex view is uniquely equipped to account for variables of interest to organizational scholars because of its attention to a fundamental tension: People in organizations can be both selfish and groupish, and the balance between those tendencies influences the ethical profile of the organization in complex ways. We end with a discussion of the theoretical implications of the Homo duplex view for behavioral ethics researchers.     

Career Adapt-Abilities Scale—Iran Form: Psychometric properties and relationships with career satisfaction and entrepreneurial intentions

This study examined the psychometric properties of a Persian translation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS—Iran Form) and its relationships with career satisfaction, business opportunity identification, and entrepreneurial intentions. It was hypothesized that career adaptability relates positively to these three outcomes, even when controlling for demographic and employment characteristics. Data were provided by 204 workers from Iran. Results showed that the overall CAAS score and sub-dimension scores (concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) were highly reliable. Moreover, confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the CAAS—Iran Form measures four distinct dimensions that can be combined into a higher-order career adaptability factor. Findings also demonstrated criterion-related validity of the scale with regard to career satisfaction and entrepreneurial intentions. In contrast, overall career adaptability was not significantly related to opportunity identification, while concern related positively, and control related negatively to opportunity identification. Overall, the CAAS—Iran Form has very good psychometric properties and predicts important career outcomes, suggesting that it can be used for career counseling and future research with Persian-speaking workers.     

Monkey kings make havoc: iconoclasm and murder in the Chinese cultural revolution

This article explores the interplay between destruction of material icons and people during China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when authority figures—teachers, landlords, monks and nuns, bosses, intellectuals, doctors, Party leaders—were ‘struggled against’ by gangs of teenage revolutionaries called Red Guards. There is striking continuity in the rhetoric and the symbolic practices of the Red Guards as they destroyed statues and to a lesser extent, signs, buildings, and books, and as they killed people. Through techniques of demonisation—the affixing of negative iconic values—the rhetoric of destruction moved all too easily from image to body and from body to image. Yet just as iconoclasm is not always the utter annihilation of an iconic object but, more crucially, an attack on its iconicity, the violence against living people which tends to accompany iconoclastic movements often seems to be about stripping away the external signs of identity and then redefining the boundaries between categories of bodies. After a brief survey of four phases of Communist iconoclasm in China, I explore a number of aspects of Chinese iconoclasm which blur the distinctions between icons and bodies, related to conceptions of icons as living, the production of iconic bodies, and the ‘iconoclasm of the habitus.’ These themes are explored in commentary on two products of Cultural Revolution iconoclasm: Born Red, a memoir by Gao Yuan, and Qiao Dianyun's short story ‘The Blank Stele.’     

Job demands and resources as antecedents of work engagement: A longitudinal study

By utilizing a 2-year longitudinal design, the present study investigated the experience of work engagement and its antecedents among Finnish health care personnel (n = 409). The data were collected by questionnaires in 2003 (Time 1) and in 2005 (Time 2). The study showed that work engagement—especially vigor and dedication—was relatively frequently experienced among the participants, and its average level did not change across the follow-up period. In addition, the experience of work engagement turned out to be reasonably stable during the 2-year period. Job resources predicted work engagement better than job demands. Job control and organization-based self-esteem proved to be the best lagged predictors of the three dimensions of work engagement. However, only the positive effect of job control on dedication remained statistically significant after controlling for the baseline level of work engagement (Time 1).     

Attention and spatial stimulus coding in the Simon task: a rejoinder to van der Lubbe and Abrahamse (2010)

Hommel (2011-this issue) has reviewed the major lines of research and ongoing controversies on and around the Simon effect. Van der Lubbe and Abrahamse (2010) take issue with Hommel's assessment of the role of attention shifting in the Simon effect. This rejoinder argues that van der Lubbe and Abrahamse's criticism is off target because it (a) fails to distinguish between the attention-shifting account of (spatial stimulus coding in) the Simon effect—which Hommel discusses and criticizes—and the premotor theory of attention—which Hommel does not discuss; (b) confuses the relationship between the attention-shifting account and the referential-coding account of spatial stimulus coding in the Simon effect—the actual topic of Hommel's discussion—with the relationship between the premotor theory and the theory of event coding—which the criticism focuses on; and (c) confuses the uncontroversial role of attention in stimulus selection with the controversial role of attention in the generation of location codes.     

Cross-fertilization versus transmission: Recommendations for developing a bidirectional approach to psychotherapy dissemination research

Psychotherapy researchers are increasingly engaged in collaborations with clinical practitioners and mental health administrators. Each party brings its own perspectives, values, and agendas to bear in these encounters. Viable research—practice collaborations depend on understanding and negotiating some of the tensions in these relationships. In this article, we discuss the contexts that prevail for various participants in a psychotherapy dissemination study as well as the values, goals, costs, and benefits related to research participation. This article is a collaboration among the researchers, mental health administrators, therapists, and clients involved in an ongoing treatment dissemination study. Our recommendations for research—practice collaborations are based on our experiences and dialogues over the course of this study.     

Three dimensions of coping and a look at their evolutionary origin

Serious problems persist concerning the conceptualization and measurement of the coping construct. This study examines the properties and factor structure of the COPE questionnaire, one of the most widely used instruments to measure coping, in a sample of 471 patients. A series of exploratory factor procedures are applied at the item- and scale-level, and the resulting solutions are tested both by their congruence with previously published structures and by confirmatory techniques. Our finding of three robust, generalizable, and parsimonious second-order dimensions—Engagement, Disengagement, and Help-Seeking—challenges the original structure. The results are discussed from an evolutionary perspective, on the assumption that the recognition of coping as the activation of vestigial defenses may make a substantial contribution to clarifying its functions and organization.     

The biological foundations of cognitive science

Cognitive Science originated in reactions against behaviorism that were motivated in significant part by the example of the computer. The computer raised the exciting possibility that mind could be understood almost entirely independently of brain: if the operations of the mind are akin to the execution of a program, then almost all the relevant aspects of mind would be captured by that program, independently of whatever was running it, be it transistors or neurons. This presumed independence of cognitive science from biology has waned considerably in recent decades, but in this paper, I argue that there is at least one crucial aspect of biology that has yet to be appreciated for its relevance to mental and other normative processes—the thermodynamics of living systems. In particular, I argue that the emergence of normativity in general—and normative function and representation in particular—depends on special systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium; these form the interface between the factual world of atoms and molecules and the normative world of mind. The nature of that emergence, in turn, imposes strong constraints on how the central nervous system functions, and, therefore, on how cognition is realized.     

A validation of the five-factor model of personality in academically talented youth across observers and instruments

Four instruments—the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), the Adjective Check List (ACL), the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the California Child Q-Set (CCQ)—and two data sources—self reports and parental ratings—were used to assess personality dimensions according to the five-factor model of personality in 870 academically talented youth (mean age = 13.77) from the U.S.A. Data from the parents of 565 of these children were also analysed. The factor structure of the self and parent reports, the convergence between the two sources of reports and the correlations of the adjectives in the ACL with the scores on the NEO-FFI were all consistent with previous results obtained from adults. The findings largely support the notion that the five-factor model as derived from data from adults is applicable to academically talented youth.     

Distinct emotional abilities converge: Evidence from emotional understanding and emotion recognition through the voice

One key criterion for whether Emotional Intelligence (EI) truly fits the definition of “intelligence” is that individual branches of EI should converge. However, for performance tests that measure actual ability, such convergence has been elusive. Consistent with theoretical perspectives for intelligence, we approach this question using EI measures that have objective standards for right answers. Examining emotion recognition through the voice—that is, the ability to judge an actor’s intended portrayal—and emotional understanding—that is, the ability to understand relationships and transitions among emotions—we find substantial convergence, r = .53. Results provide new data to inform the often heated debate about the validity of EI, and further the basis of optimism that EI may truly be considered intelligence.     

The “coconut tree” model of careers: the case of French academia

This research note sets out to explain the main features of the French university academic career—the “coconut tree,” as it is colloquially known, setting it firmly within a social and cultural context; outlining the logic and functions of career stages, explaining its rituals and conventions, its rewards and pitfalls. These are narrated by two characteristic episodes and comparisons are drawn with Anglo-Saxon academic careers.