Agnes Arber: form in the mind and the eye

Agnes Arber (1879–1960) was a British botanist who was a leading plant morphologist during the first half of the 20th century. She also wrote on the history and philosophy of botany. I argue in this article that her philosophical work on form and on how the work of the mind and the eye relate to each other in morphological research are relevant to the science of today. Arber's unusual blend of interests—in botany, history, philosophy, and art—put her in a unique position to examine issues of form. Even her unorthodox ideas on evolution can now be seen as fitting in well with discussions of natural selection as the predominant engine of evolutionary change. Arber's views also throw light on present work dealing with developmental plant genetics and with the study of protein form. I will further argue that her marginal position relative to institutional science, while it may have left her vulnerable to criticism, also made possible her deep philosophical reflections on morphology.     

Personality and Health Outcomes: Making Positive Expectations a Reality

Trait optimism is associated with better health, but the reason for this association is unclear. The present investigation focused on specific goals and negative emotions as potential pathways through which optimism can lead to better health. College students (n = 336) in the U.S. reported their mental and physical health at the start of an academic term and during finals. Over the course of the term, they reported three daily events and rated the extent to which they were motivated to attain positive outcomes (approach goals) or avoid negative outcomes (avoidance goals). Greater optimism predicted fewer mental and physical health symptoms at the end of the term, controlling for initial symptoms. This association between optimism and symptoms was mediated by the intensity of avoidance goals and negative emotion during the term. These findings suggest that positive expectations do predict better health and this relationship is partially due to the goals people set in their daily lives.     

Notes for a Critical Personality Psychology: Making Room under the Critical Psychology Umbrella

Inspired by the liberation psychologist Martin‐Baró who provocatively defined personality as that of which individuals can be robbed in conditions of social injustice and research psychologists in training whose appreciation of the possibilities of personality psychology has been limited by the dominance of trait approaches, this paper claims that we need and can practice a critical personality psychology. Conceptual and methodological tools for such an enterprise are identified in two arenas of current research: the study of narratives and new forms of history in personality psychology. Within critical personality psychology, personality is understood to be an expression of (i) a multifaceted organization that includes individual, interpersonal, social, cultural, and political contexts; (ii) individual and social change; and (iii) the moral dimensions of human psychology. Notes on future directions draw on areas of inquiry within and outside personality psychology to insure a place under the critical psychology umbrella.     

应激的缓冲器：人格坚韧性

过去30年来,关注身心保健和组织行为的心理学家都对人格心理学中的一个概念发生了兴趣,就是人格坚韧性（hardiness）,大量实证研究证明人格坚韧性可以有效地缓解生活应激给人们带来的身心不适,并有助于提高人们在各领域的工作表现。该文在回顾西方以往研究的基础上,介绍这一概念,以及这方面研究的不足之处,并提出在中国开展此项研究的思路。作为整体人格结构的一部分,人格坚韧性应该从人格“大五”或“大七”结构中探索。在中国已有研究发现,人格“大七”维度对身心健康有不同的影响,哪些维度构成人格坚韧性,这些问题有待进一步的研究     

Influences of Destructive Personality Information on Decision Making1

This study examined the effects of information about a landlord's personality on juror judgments for a landlord-tenant civil trial. The personality information manipulated was specifically relevant to destructive acts. Alternative versions of witness testimony were used to describe a landlord either high or low on need for power. treating people as objects, and negative life themes. This information strongly influenced aspects of the schema for this case constructed by the individual mock jurors. Destructive personality information caused dislike of the landlord and lowered the credibility of his story. If the landlord treated people as objects, the credibility of the tenant's story and positive evaluations of the tenant increased. Juror judgments about relative fault were strongly shifted by destructive personality information. An empirical model for juror decisions indicated a dynamic interplay of story components and fault judgments.     

Age-Related Personality Differences in Inpatients with Personality Disorder: A Cross-Sectional Study

There are few empirical studies of age-associated differences in personality characteristics of individuals diagnosed with Personality Disorder (PD), and none that comparatively examine multiple personality characteristics, with a variety of psychological measures, across a wide age range in adults diagnosed with PD and coexisting substance abuse. Personality test data of 392 psychiatric inpatients diagnosed with PD were analyzed by age group. Patients were assessed with the California Psychological Inventory, Psychological Inventory of Personality and Symptoms, Diagnostic Inventory of Personality and Symptoms, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-1, and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-1. There were no age differences in the number of patients diagnosed with PD, but older adults were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with more than one PD. Older patients with PD were significantly less impulsive, paranoid, high-energy, antisocial, and irresponsible than younger patients with PD. It appears that, with aging, there is a general mellowing of personality for those diagnosed with PD, which may be related to the proposed geriatric variants of PD.     

Rater Personality and Performance Dimension Weighting in Making Overall Performance Judgments

Purpose  

The present study examined the effects of rater personality on the performance appraisal process. Specifically, we determined the relative weights that raters place on different performance dimensions when making overall performance evaluations, and examined whether rater personality influenced this weighting process. The literatures on social/political values and mate/friend selection were used as guiding frameworks in developing specific hypotheses.     

Equilibria in Personality States: A Conceptual Primer for Dynamics in Personality States

We provide a basic, step-by-step introduction to the core concepts and mathematical fundamentals of dynamic systems modelling through applying the Change as Outcome model, a simple dynamical systems model, to personality state data. This model characterizes changes in personality states with respect to equilibrium points, estimating attractors and their strength in time series data. Using data from the Personality and Interpersonal Roles study, we find that mean state is highly correlated with attractor position but weakly correlated with attractor strength, suggesting strength provides added information not captured by summaries of the distribution. We then discuss how taking a dynamic systems approach to personality states also entails a theoretical shift. Instead of emphasizing partitioning trait and state variance, dynamic systems analyses of personality states emphasize characterizing patterns generated by mutual, ongoing interactions. Change as Outcome modelling also allows for estimating nuanced effects of personality development after significant life changes, separating effects on characteristic states after the significant change and how strongly she or he is drawn towards those states (an aspect of resiliency). Estimating this model demonstrates core dynamics principles and provides quantitative grounding for measures of ‘repulsive’ personality states and ‘ambivert’ personality structures. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Personality: A biologic system

The personality of man is a biologic system structured on the individual’s genetic and anatomic-physiologic potentials for species-specific adaptations. The system also projects him into a social and physical environment. His relationship with this environment is as integral to his being as the unity of his organ parts are to the function of his body. His personality is the end product of all the processes inherent in this biosocial interaction. It is the final statement of his biologic presence on this planet.     

Personality Testing of the Handicapped: A Review

The validity and utility of various projective and non-projective tests with handicapped populations were reviewed. Five areas of handicapping conditions were considered: Blindness, Deafness, Speech Disorders, Motor Disorders, and Intellectual Retardation. The utility of varied tests for personality diagnosis in these areas was indicated, either through evaluation of research on these tests and the handicapping condition or through noting certain unique features of specific tests which may be of help in diagnosis, though no research has yet appeared. A summary at the end of each handicapping condition indicates which tests seemed most promising for diagnosis.     

Personality perception: A developmental study

We investigated the ability of adults and children to perceive the Big Five personality traits in others from “thin slices” of the behavioral stream. Targets were videotaped in five carefully crafted situations, each designed to maximally reveal a different trait domain. In addition, each target’s personality was assessed by close friends or parents, serving as the personality criterion. Judges’ agreement with the criterion improved generally with age, but different developmental trends were observed across traits.     

论西方主流正义概念发展中的嬗变与综合(上)

在西方思想中,正义概念自产生以来历经了许多演变。从希腊神话、梭伦、柏拉图、亚里士多德一系的主流希腊思想,接通中世纪基督教的良心观念,经注入自然法的启蒙观念,汇合为自由主义的体系,并在此母体上吸收社会主义思想的部分影响,这构成了西方正义概念迄今发展的主脉。许多思想与观念都对正义的概念发生深刻影响。它的种种涵义是从它产生以来在整个西方历史中逐步增添、发展、补充进去的。在这些历史的嬗变中也不断产生新的综合形式。大致地说,在它产生于希腊思想之后,在基督教教义、自然法理论、近现代自由主义与社会主义的观念基础上都产生着新的综合。罗尔斯公平的正义的理论是西方正义概念在当代的一个最重要的综合。     

Counselling Behind the Inscrutable Mask: An Interview with Professor Agnes Mieko Watanabe

This interview with Professor Watanabe was conducted in December 1991 in Osaka, Japan. It covers the practice of counselling and guidance in Japanese schools, government agencies and the workplace. The extent of emotional problems within the school population, the needs of adult clients, and the topic of women and employment, are given particular attention.     

Deconstructing Agnes – externalization in systemic supervision

Externalization is seen in this paper as a valid and useful part of the process of clinical supervision in systemic family therapy training. We offer a discussion on the use of externalization based on an example from a supervision group on a London M.Sc. in Family Therapy. Externalizing practices are located in the context of a postmodern perspective and narrative ideas within systemic family therapy. We explore the use of narrative ideas and the recursive relationship between theory, practice and the subjective experience of the trainee, within the practice of systemic supervision.     

A Comparison of the Psychological Entitlement Scale and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory's Entitlement Scale: Relations With General Personality Traits and Personality Disorders

Two studies on the relations between various styles of defense and the power or validity of self-reports on objective personality questionnaires. The power of individual items on the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control scale to discriminate between subjects defined as internals or externals by a median-cut procedure using the total score was not affected by the presence Or absence of a projective defensive style. However, the presence of repressive tendencies did appear to restrict item power. Prediction from two achievement scales taken from Gough's California Psychological Inventory was not influenced by level of repression, was affected somewhat adversely by a projective style, and was most clearly contaminated by a rationalizing defense. It was proposed that the differential effects of defensive styles upon the validity of personality tests depended upon the convergence or divergence of the cognitive operations involved in the type of defense and in the type of personality measure.     

Personality Dimensions in Nonhuman Animals: A Cross-Species Review

The evolutionary continuity between humans and other animals suggests that some dimensions of personality may be common across a wide range of species. Unfortunately, there is no unified body of research on animal personality; studies are dispersed across multiple disciplines and diverse journals. To review 19 studies of personality factors in 12 nonhuman species, we used the human Five-Factor Model plus Dominance and Activity as a preliminary framework. Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness showed the strongest cross-speciesgenerality, followed by Openness; a separate Conscientiousness dimension appeared only in chimpanzees, humans? closest relatives. Cross-species evidence was modest for a separate Dominance dimension but scant for Activity. The comparative approach taken here offers a fresh perspective on human personality and should facilitate hypothesis-driven research on the social and biological bases of personality.