The effects of explaining hypothetical future events: From possibility to probability to actuality and beyond

Past research has demonstrated the effects of explaining hypothetical events on estimates of the probability that these events will occur. Two experiments examined the effects of explaining hypothetical outcomes for oneself on actual behavior in that situation and in a related situation. Subjects first explained hypothetical success or failure on an upcoming anagram task. They then either stated explicit expectations for the anagram task or did not. When subjects were asked to state expectations, those who had explained hypothetical success not only expected to do better but also actually outperformed those who had explained failure. That is, the events explained were behaviorally confirmed. However, when explicit expectations were not made following the explanation, those who had first explained failure did best of all, suggesting that raising the possibility of failure without forming concrete failure expectancies motivates better performance. Experiment II demonstrated that the self-fulfilling effects of prior explanation and expectation statements generalize to situations similar but not identical to the event that was explained. In addition, the effects of initial explanation predominated over the effects of actual performance feedback. The processes underlying these effects as well as the implications of the effects were discussed.     

The development and validation of the Body-Image Ideals Questionnaire

The Body-Image Ideals Questionnaire (BIQ) was developed as a unique attitudinal body-image assessment that considers one's perceived discrepancy from and degree of investment in personal ideals on multiple physical attributes. Reliability and validity of the 20-item instrument were examined for a sample of 284 college women. The results indicated that the BIQ consists of two relatively distinct and internally consistent Discrepancy and Importance subscales, as well as their multiplicative composite. The subscales' respective convergent validities vis-à-vis extant body-image measures and specific facets of personality (i.e., public self-consciousness and perfectionism) and psychosocial adjustment (i.e., social anxiety, depression, and eating disturbance) were confirmed. Evidence also supported the incremental validity of multiple self-ideal discrepancies. Effects due to socially desirable responding were inconsequential. Directions for needed basic and clinical research were identified.     

The possibility of morality

Despite much discussion over the existence of moral facts, metaethicists have largely ignored the related question of their possibility. This paper addresses the issue from the moral error theorist’s perspective, and shows how the arguments that error theorists have produced against the existence of moral facts at this world, if sound, also show that moral facts are impossible, at least at worlds non-morally identical to our own and, on some versions of the error theory, at any world. So error theorists’ arguments warrant a stronger conclusion than has previously been noticed. This may appear to make them vulnerable to counterarguments that take the possibility of moral facts as a premise. However, I show that any such arguments would be question-begging.     

The Kindness of Mothers: Ideals and Practice of Buddhist Filial Piety

This article introduces a Buddhist Sutra about filial piety. The Sutra has been widely recited, upheld, and endeared by East Asian people for centuries. It teaches the importance of understanding parents' kindnesses, particularly the mother's, and repaying their kindnesses. It explains the difficulty of repaying parents' kindnesses, unfilial behaviors of children, the mystical hell into which unfilial children are doomed to fall, and the way in which they can repay their parents' kindnesses. The mother (woman), aging, and related issues in Buddhism are discussed.     

The weariness of the hero: depression and the self in a civilization in transition

According to the World Health Organization, depression is currently the leading cause of disability, which is of great concern worldwide; however there is much dispute about depression and its causes. This article raises the hypothesis that depression could be related to an increase or inflation of ego‐consciousness, which, in turn, is inseparable from the development of modernity. The ‘hero’, symbol of this historical process of self‐consciousness and autonomy, stands now wearied and disoriented. The paper outlines how, in this cultural scene, certain ideas from Carl Jung's and James Hillman's depth psychologies may be useful in addressing the issue: the rediscovery of figures of the other through the analysis of the unconscious (Jung) and associating with others in groups imbued with communal sense (Hillman) could help the depressed individual to mitigate his or her inflated ego‐consciousness. These are two complementary ways of experiencing the conglomerate nature of the self, thus promoting the process of individuation.     

The Creation of Ideals: A Question of the Energy-Distribution in the Personality Field

Semantic contrast occurs when Ss' ratings of the meaning of a word shift as a function of the context in which that word occurs. The current set of studies, using male and female undergraduates as Ss, was designed to determine the conditions necessary to produce semantic contrast. In Experiment 1 (N = 50), words referring to physical beauty and temperature were scaled and used to construct stimuli for subsequent experiments. In Experiment 2 (N = 72), contrast occurred with the temperature expressions with both a limited and extended response mode. However, no contrast effects occurred with either response mode for the expressions of beauty in Experiment 3 (N = 72). These findings suggest that the elaboration of information in semantic memory varies. To the extent that there is an elaborate representation, items will be resistant to contextual effects, while the meaning of less-elaborated items will be affected by the context in which they are experienced.     

Making the future memorable: The phenomenology of remembered future events

Although our ability to remember future simulations conveys an adaptive advantage, enabling us to better prepare for upcoming events, the factors influencing the memorability of future simulations are not clear. In this study, participants generated future simulations that combined specific people, places and objects from memory, and for each trial, made a series of phenomenological ratings about the event components and the simulation as a whole. Memory for simulations was later assessed using a cued-recall test. We used multilevel modelling to determine whether the phenomenological qualities of event components (familiarity, emotionality and significance) and simulations (detail, plausibility) were predictive of whether the simulation was successfully encoded and later accessible. Our results demonstrate that person familiarity, detail and plausibility were significant predictors of whether a given future simulation was encoded into memory and later accessible. These findings suggest that scaffolding future simulations with pre-existing episodic memories is the path to a memorable future.     

The analyst's narrative function: Inventing a possibility

This article describes a psychic function common to analysts that was gradually revealed through clinical work with children. It is a psychic quality derived from function α, which involves analysts’ capacity for reverie – their narrative function. The author presents two clinical situations where this function developed in the analytic field in relation to patients’ difficulty in symbolizing. In the first case there was an early traumatic experience unavailable for representation. The analyst lent the patient her ability to represent and produced a narrative that made it possible to create a world of phantasies and transform nightmares into ‘dreamable’ dreams. In other words, she removed the quality of unbearable, irrepresentable reality that characterized those raw experiences encrypted in the psyche. In the second case the analyst's narrative function sought to connect with the isolation, the shell that housed a child suffering from an autistic disorder whose ability to represent had not been established. The analyst provided meaning for the patient's repetitive, stereotyped play, thus weaving the child's subjectivity and gradually introducing a notion of alterity. The author seeks to show how this function, in the thematic construction of the session, facilitated both the working‐through of a traumatic situation (with the ability to share representations) and the constitution of the psychic fabric.     

先秦音乐与儒家的礼乐理想

中国古代音乐的基本理论在先秦时期已初具系统。从音律上看,先秦音乐与现代音乐或西方古代音乐不存在本质上的不同,但在音阶的选用上,人们把“五声”视为最理想的音阶,所追求的音乐意念是“和”。先秦儒家在继承周代礼乐制度的基础上提出了“礼以别宜、乐以敦和”的礼乐理想作为治国平天下的基本途径,不仅使礼乐之间的互补关系得到进一步发展,还使“乐”的含义发生了深刻的转化。所谓乐,不仅指声音的和谐,更重要的是内心的愉悦,即“无声之乐”。它所强调的是个人对差别性社会规范即礼的发自内心的认同,并从生活践履中获得和乐的内在体验。     

The Dharma of Ethics, the Ethics of Dharma: Quizzing the Ideals of Hinduism

This paper is divided into six parts. The first presents a rudimentary definition of ethics based on Western philosophical theories, particularly their concern for articulating universal moral principles. The second examines the assumptions anchoring Western moral philosophies, and raises the question: are the philosophical presuppositions of modern Western philosophy consistent with the presuppositions of Hinduism? It concludes that the two are not entirely in agreement, particularly on the issue of personal and social identity. The third section locates areas in Hinduism that discursively concur with the concerns of Western ethicists, and explores the limits of the semblance. The fourth identifies problematic areas, and raises the question: should the idea of universal ethics be abandoned for Hinduism? The fifth section concludes that such abandonment would be hasty, and initiates a searching look into the Hindu epics for concepts that, while not identical with may still be parallel to some Western notions of ethics. The sixth looks at the content of normative Hindu morality, and generalizes on the basis of this content about the nature of “Hindu ethics”.