The Role of Music in Everyday Life: Current Directions in the Social Psychology of Music

Music is a crucial element of everyday life. People spend hours listening to it and billions of dollars buying it. Yet despite the pervasiveness of music, mainstream social‐personality psychology has hardly given any attention to this universal social phenomenon. Why is music important to people? What role does music play in everyday life? This article reviews research in fields outside mainstream psychology concerned with the social and psychological factors that influence how people experience and use music in their daily lives. The research in this area shows that music can have considerable effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. It also indicates that people use music to serve various functions, from emotion regulation to self‐expression to social bonding. Research in this emerging field reveals how social‐personality psychology can inform our understanding of music, and in doing so it highlights the real‐world relevance of mainstream theory and research.     

Musical Worlds: New Directions in the Philosophy of Music

Book Information Musical Worlds: New Directions in the Philosophy of Music. Edited by Philip Alperson. Pennsylvania State University Press. University Park. 1998. Pp. 188. Paperback.     

The Challenges of the Schooling from Cultural Psychology of Education

Education is in the core of societal change in all its different forms—from kindergartens to vocational schools and lifelong learning. Education—understood as goal-oriented personal movement—re-structures personal lives both inside school and outside the school. This special issue stems from the Cultural Psychology of Education (Marsico Culture & Psychology, 21(4), 445–454, 2015a, b, Journal for the Study of Education and Development, 40(4), 754–781, 2017)—a new approach to the field of education that examines how educational experience is culturally organized. This special issue is focused on the work of schooling as a crucial scientific arena to investigate. It is the follow up of an international workshop host by the Centre for Cultural Psychology (at Aalborg University, Demark) that was very thought provoking and from where several outcomes came out. Some of them are the papers here presented that tried to illuminate the different dimensions of the educational context in the East and West society with specific attention to the Chinese and Scandinavian educational practices. The dialogue between Chinese, European and North American scholars offered a complex view of the current educational challenges in the age of globalization. In this paper I try to focus on some of the most debated and challenging aspects in educational psychology worldwide: diversity, values and practical usability of psychology at school. I re-read these “hot topics” with the help of the themes developed by the authors of this special issue and in light of Cultural Psychology of Education. Then, I conclude by proposing a new agenda for the education of the future.     

Social Psychology of Education

Social Psychology of Education -     

中国文化心理学视界下的音乐实质探究

从中国语言的词源上看,音乐中的"乐(yuè)"通快乐的"乐(lè)",它们都源自于"鼓",而鼓声能够令人兴奋、情绪激昂,因此,中国文化中的音乐的原初含义有"令人振奋、快乐"的声音和人在振奋、快乐时表达这种心情的声音两层意思。后来这两层含义延伸为"动情"即激发人的情感或心理感染和"传情"或"达情"即表达人的情感。基于此,创作好的音乐作品或评判一个音乐作品的好坏,要看它是否具有"言志"、"激励人或令人振奋"、"表达情感"和"培养或锻造人的积极情感或心理品质"的作用。     

Musical Thought in the Zhuangzi: A Criticism of the Confucian Discourse on Ritual and Music

Musical thought in the Chinese tradition is frequently discussed in terms of the Confucian discourse on “ritual and music (lǐyuè 禮樂),” but how this Confucian discourse has been viewed by its critics has seldom been addressed. This paper aims to explore musical thought in the Zhuangzi as a serious critique of Confucian musical discourse. Zhuangzian thinkers doubt whether Confucian ritual music can avoid restricting music within a specific musical tradition, impeding the freedom to enjoy music, and distorting the nature of music. Unlike Confucian discourse, which emphasizes music’s external effects, Zhuangzian musical thought ultimately leads us to focus on the essential questions: how to cultivate one’s own sensibility toward musical harmony, how to open one’s mind to comprehend different musical sources, and how to eventually reach musical Dao.     

论战国时代儒家乐教的失落

自周初至孔子之时,乐教作为人文教育极为重要的组成部分,始终受到关注、推崇与系统性地实施,而其彻底的失落则发生于孔子身后的战国时代.由于乐教本身具有的特殊性及其与时代环境之间的紧张关系,在儒门之外,乐教乏人问津或遭受峻厉批判.而于儒门之内,孟子对于乐教已十分陌生,这是应当受到重视的孔孟之间又一重大分别;荀子则着力将乐...     

从医生心理看医院对病人的人文关怀

现代社会的飞速发展给医学事业带来了空前的发展机遇,给广大的患者带来了实惠和希望的同时,也给医生的心理带来了一系列的问题,给患者人文关怀最终要由医生来完成.阐述了医生的心理现状,分析了产生的原因,并用马斯洛的需求层次理论提出了如何改变医生的不良心态,给患者文人关怀.     

社会支持对慢性病患者身心健康的影响

慢性疾病已经成为威胁现代人健康的头号问题.社会支持作为影响人们身心健康的重要因素,在减轻疾病压力、帮助人们应对压力以及减少心理不适、增进身体健康等方面发挥着重要的作用.从社会网络理论的视角,考察社会支持对慢性病患者身心健康的影响,提出相应的社会支持对策.     

Higher Education in Light of the Cross

What is the summum bonum of a university education? The much lauded “liberal” approach of Aristotle, Newman, and Roche proposes that education is for contemplating the truth—an intrinsic, joyous end in itself. This approach offers the benefits of pursuing truth, virtues, and intellectual habits, but it also carries with it the temptations of idealatry and homo incurvatus in se. Christian universities can reform this approach to education, though, with Luther's theology of the cross, reorienting it through the crucified Christ toward the highest ends of life revealed in God's word: faith in God and love for the neighbor.     

进化心理学取向与当代心理学

进化心理学以进化论为理论基础,用适应的观点来解释人类的心理机制及其行为方式。本文通过阐明进化心理学的产生背景,重点论述了进化心理学的思维方式及其与心理学主要学科分支的联系,并指出了进化心理学对当代心理学发展的影响。     

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。     

Anti-fat Prejudice: The Role of Psychology in Explication, Education and Eradication

The field of psychology’s explication of anti-fat prejudice and its impact on psychological practice in the U.S. is reviewed. The medical perspective that obesity is itself a disease or a psychological disorder and that fat is the cause of various physical or mental health conditions is challenged and viewed as contributing to weight-based prejudice in the U.S. The role of psychology in educating students and future practitioners about anti-fat bias and research on the ineffectiveness of dieting is examined. Research documenting anti-fat bias in the diagnosis and treatment of fat female clients in the U.S. is reviewed, and potential solutions for eradicating anti-fat prejudice in the clinical practice of psychology, including alternatives to dieting for women, are described.