Multiple Personality, Dissociation, and C. G. Jung''s Complex Theory

Jung's contributions to the study of 'dissociation' are outlined here for perhaps the first time. Jung is unique in recognising that the 'dissociability of the psyche' is a fundamental process that extends along the continuum from 'normal' mental functioning to 'abnormal' states. Dissociation is recognised by Jung as a universal and necessary psychic activity for the development of personality through the differentiation of functions. However, when the cohesion of consciousness is shattered by extreme childhood traumata, as it is in the development of multiple personality, this natural differentiation of function is intensified and the dissociative splits between autonomous forces in the psyche become more extreme. This increases the autonomy of these 'splinter psyches' from ego-consciousness and reveals their archetypal core. They then develop into the phenomenon of 'alternate personalities' in multiple personality. In a comparison of the major tenets of the complex theory with recent empirical research on multiple personality, it is demonstrated that essential characteristics of Jung's 'autonomous complexes' are congruent with the phenomenology of the 'alternate personalities' or 'personality states' of this disorder. This underscores the relevance of Jung's complex theory to present understanding of multiple personality. In addition, the phenomenon of multiple personality is, in turn, important for realising the central significance of dissociation in the complex theory and provides an excellent contemporary clinical example of the archetypal ground of the psyche.     

Multiple Realizability,Constraints, and Identity

Shapiro has suggested that the empirical plausibility of the multiple realizability of human‐like minds is dubious, because a contrary thesis, the Mental Constraint Thesis, enjoys positive empirical evidence. The Mental Constraint Thesis states that, given the actual physical laws, there is only one way to realize a human‐like mind. I will suggest, however, that the Mental Constraint Thesis is not a contrary to the empirical multiple realizability thesis relevant to psychological reduction or autonomy and, as a consequence, has no bearing on those classificatory issues.     

Kinds,Complexity and Multiple realization

Philosophical Studies -     

Multiple roles, social networks, and women's well-being

In contrast to earlier approaches to the study of multiple roles, our research was concerned with the frequency and conditions under which both positive and negative outcomes occur. Using data from a random sample of 235 married female nurses, we focused on marital and job satisfaction as important criteria of success in managing multiple roles. In the first phase of the research, a cluster analysis identified five different profiles of marital and job satisfaction. Of the two most positive profiles, one was defined by high scores in both areas, the other by high job satisfaction but only moderate marital satisfaction. In two other profiles, women were very dissatisfied with one role and at best moderately satisfied with the other. In the second phase, the profiles were found to be meaningfully associated with measures of psychological symptomatology and overall life satisfaction. The third phase considered how the profiles were linked to measures of social support and social rejection provided by five key network members. The strongest univariate profile discriminator was the level of work rejection from the spouse. A discriminant function analysis revealed that the level of spouse's work rejection was even more powerful when it was compared to the level of work rejection received from the next closest family member (typically the mother).     

Multiple realization,reduction and mental properties

This paper tries to remove some obstacles standing in the way of considering mental properties as both genuine natural kinds and causally efficacious rather than epiphenomena. As the case of temperature shows, it is not justified to conclude from a property being multiply realizable to it being irreducible. Yet Kim's argument to the effect that if a property is multiply realizable with a heterogeneous reduction base then it cannot be a natural kind and possesses only derivative “epiphenomenal” causal efficacy is not conclusive either. The fact that temperature is, but jade is not, a natural kind cannot be established by comparing the heterogeneity of their respective reduction bases, but rather by the fact that the former is and the latter is not embedded in laws of nature.     

Multiple goals,motivation and academic learning

Background: The type of academic goals pursued by students is one of the most important variables in motivational research in educational contexts. Although motivational theory and research have emphasised the somewhat exclusive nature of two types of goal orientation (learning goals versus performance goals), some studies (Meece, 1994; Seifert, 1995, 1996) have shown that the two kinds of goals are relatively complementary and that it is possible for students to have multiple goals simultaneously, which guarantees some flexibility to adapt more efficaciously to various contexts and learning situations. Aim: The principal aim of this study is to determine the academic goals pursued by university students and to analyse the differences in several very significant variables related to motivation and academic learning. Sample: Participants were 609 university students (74% women and 26% men) who filled in several questionnaires about the variables under study. Method: We used cluster analysis ('quick cluster analysis' method) to establish the different groups or clusters of individuals as a function of the three types of goals (learning goals, performance goals, and social reinforcement goals). By means of MANOVA, we determined whether the groups or clusters identified were significantly different in the variables that are relevant to motivation and academic learning. Lastly, we performed ANOVA on the variables that revealed significant effects in the previous analysis. Results: Using cluster analysis, three groups of students with different motivational orientations were identified: a group with predominance of performance goals (Group PG: n = 230), a group with predominance of multiple goals (Group MG: n = 238), and a group with predominance of learning goals (Group LG: n = 141). Conclusions: Groups MG and LG attributed their success more to ability, they had higher perceived ability, they took task characteristics into account when planning which strategies to use in the learning process, they showed higher persistence, and used more deep learning strategies than did the students with predominance of performance goals (Group PG). On the other hand, Groups MG and PG took the evaluation criteria more into account when deciding which strategies to use in order to learn, and they attributed their failures more to luck than did Group LG. Students from Group MG attributed their success more to effort than did the other two groups and they attained higher achievement than Group PG. Group LG tended to attribute their failures more to lack of effort than did the other two groups.     

Realization and Multiple Realization,Chicken and Egg

A common view is that the truth of multiple realization—e.g., about psychological states—entails the truth of functionalism. This is supposed to follow because what is multiply realized is eo ipso realized. I argue that view is mistaken by demonstrating how it misrepresents arguments from multiple realization. In particular, it undermines the empirical component of the arguments, and renders the multiplicity of the realization irrelevant. I suggest an alternative reading of multiple realizability arguments, particularly in philosophy of psychology. And I explain the proper way to understand the relation between realization and multiple realization.     

Authorship,Co‐Authorship,and Multiple Authorship

In this article, I use the example of the novel Micro, authored by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, to tease out the relationships between an author and his work and with other authors of that work. The case presents a complication for a number of contemporary views on authorship and co‐authorship, which suggest that Crichton is either not an author of the novel or an author but not a co‐author—both, I suggest, are counterintuitive views. After working through the leading views on the topic, I present my own view of authorship, co‐authorship, and multiple authorship, centrally resting on issues of power, responsibility, and creation.     

Resolving Multiple Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion

Abstract. I argue for the centrality of the concepts of biophysical and human nature in science‐and‐religion studies, consider five different metaphors, or “visions,” of nature, and explore possibilities and challenges in reconciling them. These visions include (a) evolutionary nature, built on the powerful explanatory framework of evolutionary theory; (b) emergent nature, arising from recent research in complex systems and self‐organization; (c) malleable nature, indicating both the recombinant potential of biotechnology and the postmodern challenge to a fixed ontology; (d) nature as sacred, a diffuse popular concept fundamental to cultural analysis; and (e) nature as culture, an admission of epistemological constructivism. These multiple visions suggest the famous story of the blind men and the elephant, in which each man made the classic mistake of part‐whole substitution in believing that what he grasped (the tail, for example) represented the elephant as a whole. Indeed, given the inescapability of metaphor, we may have to admit that the ultimate truth about the “elephant” (nature, or the reality toward which science and religion point) is a mystery, and the best we can hope for is to confess the limitations of any particular vision.     

Multiple sclerosis,emotion perception and social functioning

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) can experience problems in interpreting others’ emotions from faces or voices. However, to date little is known about whether difficulties in emotion perception in MS are related to broader aspects of social functioning. Also, there are few studies reporting the effect of MS on more ecologically valid assessments of emotion perception using multimodal videos. The current study looks at (1) the effect of MS on perceiving emotions from faces, voices and multimodal videos; (2) the possible role of slowed processing and executive dysfunction in emotion perception problems in MS and (3) the relationship between emotion perception and broader social functioning in MS. 53 people with MS and 31 healthy controls completed tasks of emotion perception and cognition, and assessed their levels of social support and social participation. Participants with MS performed worse than demographically matched controls on all measures of emotion perception. Emotion perception performance was related to cognitive measures in those with MS. Also, significant associations were found between emotion perception difficulties in MS and poorer social function. In particular, people with MS who had poorer emotion perception also reported lower levels of social support from their friends, and regression analysis showed that this prediction was maintained even when disease severity and cognitive function were taken into account. These results show that problems with emotion perception in MS extend to more realistic tasks and may predict key aspects of social functioning.     

Reasoning and Arguing,Dialectically and Dialogically,Among Individual and Multiple Participants

Within three of the most well-known contemporary approaches to argumentation, the notions of solo argumentation and arguing with one’s self are given little attention and are typically argued to be able to be subsumed within the dialectical aspects of the approach being propounded. Challenging these claims, this paper has two main aims. The first is to argue that while dialogical argumentation may be most common, there exists individual (monological) dialectical argumentation, which is not so easily subsumed within these theories. Second, in order characterize this type of argumentation the paper also offers distinctions between the interrelated notions of dialectical, dialogical, and quasi-dialogical, reasoning and argumentation, within an individual or between multiple participants, which I hope provide useful precision for the field.     

Fine-Tuning, Multiple Universes, and the "This Universe" Objection

Abstract: When it is suggested that the fine-tuning of the universe for life provides evidence for a cosmic designer, the multiple-universe hypothesis is often presented as an alternative. Some philosophers object that the multiple-universe hypothesis fails to explain why this universe is fine-tuned for life. We suggest the "This Universe" objection is no better than the "This Planet" objection. We also fault proponents of the "This Universe" objection for presupposing that we could not have existed in any other universe and that the values of the free parameters of the Universe could have been different. Lastly, we reflect on why fine-tuning for life needs explaining     

Multiple propositions, contextual variability, and the semantics/pragmatics interface

A ‘multiple-proposition (MP) phenomenon’ is a putative counterexample to the widespread implicit assumption that a simple indicative sentence (relative to a context of utterance) semantically expresses at most one proposition. Several philosophers and linguists (including Stephen Neale and Chris Potts) have recently developed hypotheses concerning this notion. The guiding questions motivating this research are: (1) Is there an interesting and homogenous semantic category of MP phenomena? (2) If so, what is the import? Do MP theories have any relevance to important current questions in the study of language? I motivate an affirmative answer to (1), and then argue that MP theorizing is quite relevant to debates at the semantics/pragmatics interface.     

Masculinity,Femininity, and Multiple Regression: A Reply to Holmbeck

We respond to Holmbeck's (this issue) criticism of our work. Holmbeck is correct to observe that we mislabel the hierarchical regression analyses that we actually performed in Zeldow et al. (1985, 1987) as stepwise regressions. We also reported some correlation coefficients in Zeldow et al. (1985) which were incorrect. However, further speculation by Holmbeck that alternate analyses would "dramatically" alter our results and that we are guilty of various interpretive errors are shown to be wrong. Most of Holmbeck's conclusions about the potential misuses of multiple regression analyses in androgyny research are supported. However, the substantive conclusions of our earlier articles remain unchanged.     

Gender Role Internalization, Multiple Roles, and Chinese Women's Mental Health

The influence of gender role internalization as a moderator in the relationship between women's multiple roles and psychological distress was investigated. Study 1 identified three components of gender role internalization, which were labeled "Traditional Ideal Person,""Self-sacrifice," and "Competence without Complaint," and found that it did not overlap with existing gender-typed measures among 128 female Chinese university students. The multidimensionality of gender role internalization was confirmed in Study 2 among a sample of 225 women in the paid Hong Kong workforce. As expected, role quality was a better predictor of psychological distress than role quantity. Gender role internalization accounted for significant portions of explained variance even after taking role quality into account. Internalization of Traditional Ideal Person and Competence without Complaint messages exacerbated distress in certain areas when role quality was low. However, internalization of Self-Sacrifice messages mitigated distress for Chinese women with low work quality.