The mind has a mind of its own: Developing knowledge about mental uncontrollability

Five-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and adults were tested for their understanding that people have only limited control over their mental activity. The adolescents and adults understood much better than the children that a child who sees a shot needle while awaiting a shot will automatically think about getting a shot, and that a child who hears a strange noise will automatically wonder what it is, even if these children did not want to think or wonder about anything. There were also significant increases with age in the recognition that a person would not be able to go for three days without thinking or wondering about anything, that one sometimes has thoughts one does not want to have, and that unwanted thoughts one tries to get rid of often come back. Arguments were made for the adaptive value of learning that the mind has a mind of its own.     

On creating a psychoanalytic mind

The term process knowledge is introduced to highlight a particular way of analyzing that centers on how our patients gain knowledge. It is suggested that analyzing with heightened awareness to process knowledge is crucial for the patients' capacity for self-analysis, and differs from helping patients primarily gain knowledge of their unconscious fantasies and conflicts as the primary curative factor in psychoanalysis.     

Student rights: a program for counselors

Students are increasingly aware of their rights as “persons under our Constitution.” At the high school level especially, they are questioning, challenging, and, with the help of the courts, defining the limits of school officials' authority in some areas of personal freedom and school discipline. Not only should counselors give students information and support on their rights but they should also work for the recognition and protection of those rights by the entire school community. This article offers a Model Student Bill of Rights and suggestions for counselors on how to implement that Bill.     

How to share a mind: Reconsidering the group mind thesis

Standard accounts in social ontology and the group cognition debate have typically focused on how collective modes, types, and contents of intentions or representational states must be construed so as to constitute the jointness of the respective agents, cognizers, and their engagements. However, if we take intentions, beliefs, or mental representations all to instantiate some mental properties, then the more basic issue regarding such collective engagements is what it is for groups of individual minds to share a mind. Somewhat surprisingly, this very issue has not received much attention in the respective debates and when it has, typically the outlook has been skeptical or outright negative. In this paper, I argue that it is epistemologically possible for a group of individuals to literally share a single mental unit. In particular, I will put forward and defend what I shall call the zombie conception of group minds.     

Manifest needs of prospective counselors: a comparative study

Mean performances of 81 prospective counselors on each of the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS; Edwards, 1959) needs were analyzed and statistically compared with performances of elementary school counselors, other school counselors, urban college students, professional women, Roman Catholic sisters, and the 1959 EPPS norm samples. Performances of the men and women in the prospective counselor group were similar. Men had a significantly higher need for achievement and dominance, but the significance did not reach .01. Two EPPS needs, intraception and nurturance, consistently differentiated the prospective counselor group. Comparisons across samples indicated that prospective counselors were most similar to the two counseling samples and, for the female subgroup of prospective counselors, to the sample of professional women. Largest across-sample differences were found between the female prospective counselors and the Roman Catholic sisters, between the female prospective counselors and norm samples of female college students and female adults, and between the male prospective counselors and the male adult norm sample.     

The bored mind is a guiding mind: toward a regulatory theory of boredom

By presenting and synthesizing findings on the character of boredom, the article advances a theoretical account of the function of the state of boredom. The article argues that the state of boredom should be understood as a functional emotion that is both informative and regulatory of one's behavior. Boredom informs one of the presence of an unsatisfactory situation and, at the same time, it motivates one to pursue a new goal when the current goal ceases to be satisfactory, attractive or meaningful. Boredom ultimately promotes both movement and the restoration of the perception that one's activities are meaningful and congruent with one's overall projects.     

On matters of mind and body: regarding Descartes

In this paper the author considers Descartes’ place in current thinking about the mind‐body dilemma. The premise here is that in the history of ideas, the questions posed can be as significant as the answers acquired. Descartes’ paramount question was ‘How do we determine certainty?’ and his pursuit of an answer led to cogito ergo sum. His discovery simultaneously raised the question whether mind is separate from or unified with the body. Some who currently hold that brain and subjectivity are unified contend that the philosopher ‘split’ mind from body and refer to ‘Descartes’ error’. This paper puts forward that Descartes’ detractors fail to recognise Descartes’ contribution to Western thought, which was to introduce the Enlightenment and to give a place to human subjectivity. Added to this, evidence from Descartes’ correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia supports the conclusion that Descartes did in fact believe in the unity of mind and body although he could not reconcile this rationally with the certainty from personal experience that they were separate substances. In this Descartes was engaged in just the same dilemma as that of current thinkers and researchers, a conflict which still is yet to be resolved.     

人心难读：冲突中的预测偏差及其心理机制

冲突事件是指当事某方采取的行动可能对另一方造成直接且明显的伤害、进而导致紧张关系的事件。拒绝他人请求、反驳他人观点、与他人一起参与竞争等皆有可能诱发冲突。有效的冲突管理有助于减少冲突带来的消极影响,发挥冲突潜在的积极影响。但是,广泛存在的预测偏差严重妨碍了冲突管理。因此,欲解决冲突管理的难题,必须探究人类在冲突中的预测偏差。现有研究多着眼于非冲突中的预测偏差,采取信息驱动的视角,将预测偏差的主要原因归结为人受限于认知上的不足,因而认为预测偏差是一种错误,主要关注其消极影响。然而,现有研究忽视了冲突中的预测偏差的独特性。冲突中,预测偏差可能受人的自我保护动机和避免人际伤害动机驱动自上而下地产生,并具有一定的适应性。 基于对现有研究的总结,本项目旨在突破当前的理论困境,探讨冲突事件中预测偏差的独特规律及其心理机制与后果,具体而言包括四大目标：(1)聚焦冲突事件中的预测偏差,并以对应的非冲突事件作为对照,揭示预测偏差在冲突中独特的表现形式,提出冲突事件的“偏差放大效应”,即与非冲突事件相比,在冲突事件中,预测偏差的程度会被放大,例如反驳他人者对他人的体验产生较大的错误预测,而赞同他人者则相对能更准确地预测他人的体验;(2)从动机性认知视角探讨“偏差放大效应”的心理成因,揭示“负性驱动机制”,即人因为担忧冲突事件的负性结果,出于自我保护的目的而在注意、知觉、思维等认知加工环节把冲突事件的潜在结果加工得更加消极,作最坏的打算以应对冲突;(3)考察“负性驱动机制”下预测偏差导致的后果,如使人采取回避行为,具体表现为人际退缩和不作为等;(4)设计有效的去偏差方案,以直接和间接两种方式改变预测者的动机,进而改变其认知加工,减弱预测偏差。 通过完成以上目标,本项目将构建解释冲突事件中预测偏差的理论模型。该理论模型立足于动机性认知的视角,从现象层面揭示“偏差放大效应”,将负性偏差理论拓展到人际过程中;从机制层面突破信息驱动视角的局限,揭示动机性认知在人际互动中的指导作用;从思想层面基于生态理性观辩证分析预测偏差的适应性作用,促使研究者重新审视“何为理性”。该模型弥补了以往研究忽视动机对预测偏差的影响这一不足,并将预测偏差和负性偏差、动机性认知等理论结合起来,形成了更完整的理论框架。本项目有助于推动对预测偏差的全面理解,发展行为决策理论,帮助公众和社会治理者准确预测他人,提升冲突管理能力,提高决策质量。     

Empathy theory and practice: a survey of psychologists and counselors

Psychologists and counselors completed a questionnaire devised by the authors to explore the relationships between their extent of endorsement of empathy definitions, their use and views of empathy, and their identification with theories of psychotherapy. Results from 565 respondents suggested that those who identified with humanistic/experiential and psychodynamic theories seemed to have similar views of how empathy is defined and viewed and reported that they use empathy more than those with other theoretical inclinations. These findings suggest that there is some consistency between theoretical identification and definition, as well as reported use and views of empathy.     

Puerto Rican youth speaks out: SOME QUOTATIONS

In April 1971 11 lively and perceptive Puerto Rican young people met with guest editor Uvaldo Palomares for a discussion. Nine of the young people were in high school and two were enrolled in universities in the New York City area. All of them were involved in the Aspira Club Federation¹, whose aim is to enlighten and encourage Puerto Rican students to attain the educational level to which they aspire. First Palomares explained to the group that he was preparing a special issue of this journal and would like their opinions about counselors. Then he asked them to respond to the following questions: (a) Are there problems that are special to the Puerto Rican? What do you think is the present situation? (b) What are some positive characteristics of Puerto Ricans that counselors and teachers usually don't know about? (c) Why don't counselors or teachers generally recognize these things? (d) What can they do to overcome this problem? What follows here are frank, forthright responses relating to a great variety of concerns, from culture and stereotyping to poverty and tokenism. The interview has been edited by Geraldine Palomares, who is a consultant at the Human Development Training Institute in San Diego.     

Economic survival for counselors: differentiated staffing

There are counselors who oppose the concept of differential staffing, or the use of aides in secondary school counseling offices. In this article the author reviews some of the stated objections, provides some remarks in rebuttal, and gives some of the unstated reasons for the concept's lack of acceptance among practicing secondary school counselors.     

On the mind/body problem: The theory of essence

The classical mind/body problem can be approached empirically, using instances of the near-death experience (NDE) as experimental data. The monistic viewpoint, that the mind is the functioning of the brain, finds little support in the NDE data, while dualism, mind and body as separate entities, is consistent with NDE research to date. Comparison of the details of the NDE with predictions from theoretical cosmology shows strong similarities between the two and further strengthens the case for dualism. A theory of human nature is proposed that incorporates these similarities.J. Kenneth Arnette, Ph.D. received a doctorate in Physical Chemistry from Florida State University