The ideal‐self inventory: A new measure of self‐esteem

This article reports on some research in progress developing a new measure of self‐esteem which we have called the Ideal‐Self Inventory (ISI). The inventory is based on a constructivist approach and simply asks participants to list ten characteristics to describe their ideal self together with the ten opposite characteristics to describe their not ideal self. The ISI has been tested on over 100 student volunteers and correlates significantly with the adult version of the Coopersmith Self‐Esteem Inventory. The applications of this new measure are discussed with particular reference to counselling and psychotherapy.     

Waking‐up: A neglected model for the afterlife

An inquiry into the possibility that life‐after‐death be understood as waking from a shared dream into the real world. Attempts to outlaw the possibility that ‘really’ we are, e.g., vat‐brains are shown to lead to unwelcome, anti‐realist conclusions about either the world or consciousness. The unsatisfactory nature of empirically observable (Humean) causal connections suggests that real causes may be found beyond the world of our present experience. Though such a story cannot now be proved to be true, we are entitled to entertain it as a serious possibility. An attempt is made to say what life is like in the ‘Real World’, whether this be a spatial world like our present one or not, and what moral it holds for our present life. I suggest (like Plato) that there are many levels of waking, and that our ‘Real Self should not be identified simply with our present egos.     

No‐self,real self,ignorance and self‐deception: Does self‐deception require a self?

In this paper I dispute Eliot Deutsch's claim [See Deutsch, Eliot (1996) Self‐deception: a comparative study, in: Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (Eds) Self and Deception: a cross‐cultural enquiry (Albany, State University of New York Press), pp. 315–326] that examining self‐deception from the perspective of non‐Western traditions (i.e. how it is understood in those cultures) can help us to better understand the nature of the phenomenon in one's own culture. Although the claim appears to be uncontrover‐sial and perhaps even self‐evident, I shall argue that it is fundamentally mistaken. What is important about both the claim and my critical assessment of it is not what it tells us about self‐deception. I shall show that it tells us little about self‐deception; that Deutsch confuses ignorance with self‐deception; and that he straightforwardly equivocates on the concept. Instead, what is interesting is what Deutsch's treatment of self‐deception in comparative perspective can tell us about comparative philosophy. The significance of what follows in this paper is less about self‐deception than it is about comparative philosophy.     

Settling on what we are: The central place of the sense‐of‐self in education,and the implication of the concepts of the teleon and telentropy for the development of the sense‐of‐self

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the centrality of the development of a person's sense‐of‐self in his or her personal growth, and so to justify why educators should deliberately focus the attention of learners on the development of their own senses‐of‐self.

We describe the sense‐of‐self as a person's working hypothesis of what he or she is, as a functioning being. (This is in contrast to the notion of self‐concept, which is composed of the beliefs and evaluations that one has about oneself as a person in a social context.)

To illustrate the centrality of the sense‐of‐self we introduce two associated concepts—the teleon and telentropy. Teleons are “purposeful action patterns,” which may be regarded as the defining characteristic of any living system, including human beings.

Telentropy is similar to entropy (encountered in physics and chemistry), but instead of dealing with the level of disorder in externally described systems, it represents the level of informational confusion existing within an organism regarding its own true nature.

We discuss the implications of the concepts “teleon” and “telentropy” for a person's educability, using examples from daily life and educational institutions.

We provide a number of suggestions for the revising of educational practice to foster the development of the sense‐of‐self in learners. This we demonstrate to have potentially beneficial effects of the general stress levels of society.     

The secular model of the multi‐cultural state

On what model should a modern multi‐cultural democracy work? Spinosa et al. have argued that the political order should be sustained by a set of common values instilled in the citizens, without, however, any common rank order among these values. I argue that the multi‐cultural state should rather conform to what I call the Secular Model, according to which the citizens need not share any basic values at all. On the Secular Model, people individually stick to the existing constitution (only) as long as they each feel that they have good reasons to do so. To be sure, each citizen of a multi‐cultural state does need a feeling of community identity, a ‘we’ ideology, but it is desirable that each individual can have more than one such identity. It is also important that each individual can shift as he or she pleases, from one such identity to another. So this kind of identity should not be moulded by the state, but by various different free associations, independent of the state.     

The growth hypothesis and self‐actualization: An existential alternative

Abstract

Examining the process of becoming from an existential perspective, we describe the existence of the self in non‐biological terms as a product of its own intentionality. In this context, there is no need to postulate a growth hypothesis in order to (1) to describe a person as a process of becoming, and (2) to explain self‐actualization. While the process of becoming is a static process, self‐actualization is a dynamic process. In the first case, the self deterministically and naively merely becomes. In the second, case, the process results from becoming the object of personal choices, whereby we become authentic. While the self is “a being in the process of mere becoming,” self‐actualization is “a being in the process of authentic becoming.” In this view, humanistic psychotherapy aims at making the self's mere becoming an authentic process. Existential crisis, in particular confrontation with death, is often the transformational medium.     

The growth hypothesis and self‐actualization: An existential alternative

Abstract

Examining the process of becoming from an existential perspective, we describe the existence of the self in non‐biological terms as a product of its own intentionality. In this context, there is no need to postulate a growth hypothesis in order to (1) to describe a person as a process of becoming, and (2) to explain self‐actualization. While the process of becoming is a static process, self‐actualization is a dynamic process. In the first case, the self deterministically and naively merely becomes. In the second, case, the process results from becoming the object of personal choices, whereby we become authentic. While the self is “a being in the process of mere becoming,” self‐actualization is “a being in the process of authentic becoming.” In this view, humanistic psychotherapy aims at making the self's mere becoming an authentic process. Existential crisis, in particular confrontation with death, is often the transformational medium.     

A cross‐cultural adventure: The transformation of Ronald Nixon

It was very rare for a Westerner to cross over into traditional Hindu culture during the British period of Indian history. One figure to do so, however, was Ronald Nixon, who later came to be known by the name Krishnaprem and was recognized as a Hindu saint by many Indians of his day. This paper explores the life and thought of Krishnaprem by examining both his own published works and private sources. It investigates the way in which he negotiated resistant boundaries within Hindu culture and highlights the nature of his move from those dimensions of Hindu culture that were publicly acceptable to Western intellectuals into those private realms which were not. The life story of Ronald Nixon provides good opportunity for cross‐cultural considerations and challenges many of the assumptions held in the academy regarding cultural boundaries.     

Towards the identification of situational barriers to creative behaviors: The development of a self‐report inventory

Four clusters of obstacles have been obtained from the Jones Inventory of Barriers (JIB), a self‐report inventory designed to investigate barriers to individual creativity in organizational environments. The barriers have been modelled as strategic, values, perceptual, and self‐image factors. Statistical evidence is presented for the reliability and validity of the measure across convenience samples of English speaking respondents (N=364). Correlational patterns between the barriers and a battery of established tests of creativity are complex, but satisfactory, as the barriers were negatively correlated with the creativity measures. Significant differences in mean scores for some barriers were found across the sampled occupational groups, including graduate engineers, architects, and business graduates. The JIB offers promise in a range of diagnostic and personal development situations.     

The over‐Negativized conceptualization of deviance: A programmatic exploration

It is the contention of this paper that past and current sociological conceptions of deviance are unduly limited in that they consider only negative conceptualizations of general deviance. The argument is advanced that sociologists are overdue to acknowledge the empirical existence of positive deviance and to incorporate the positive deviance into a broader, more general study of deviance. Since acknowledging positive deviance would highlight the inadequacy of conceptualizations limited to negative deviance only, guidelines for the beginnings of the solution to this problem are suggested. Suggestions are presented for reworking and reevaluating some of the basic definitional statements of (negative) deviance and some of the elemental aspects of the existing deviance paradigms in order to develop a more general field of study.     

Higher‐order factors of creativity within Guilford's structure‐of‐intellect model: A re‐analysis of a fifty‐three variable data base

Both exploratory factor analyses (varimax and promax solutions) and confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analyses were used to re‐examine a correlation matrix of 53 tests from a battery administered to a sample of more than 400 Air Force officers. The data base originated in a report from the University of Southern California Aptitudes Research Project (Guilford, Wilson, & Christensen, 1952), which was intended to identify factors of creative thinking. The major objective of this study was to ascertain whether the covariation among the test variables that were conceptualized as first‐order factors within the structure‐of‐intellect model could be explained parsimoniously in terms of a number of higher‐order creative abilities. Application of a relatively objective oblique exploratory factor analytic technique (promax) afforded a replication of four of Guilford's creativity factors—two divergent production constructs of ideational fluency and word fluency, one construct representing sensitivity to problems, and another identified as redefinition or flexibility of closure typically involving transformations. Although substantial support was found for higher‐order factor models which distinguished among five types of psychological operations and three kinds of test content, statistical indicators of closeness‐of‐fit suggested that a mixed model of both first‐order and higher‐order factors was required to describe creativity thinking, perhaps within some form of hierarchical ordering. In addition to recognition of divergent production as a key component of creative endeavor, it appeared that a higher‐order convergent production factor involving primarily semantic and symbolic transformations constituted a dimension of potential importance to the creative thinking of mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and inventors. It was hypothesized that in creative thinking a variety of psychological operations within a dynamic interactive system is employed almost simultaneously in a forward and backward manner.     

The breadth and boundaries of a self‐psychological immersion in shame a one‐and‐a‐half‐person perspective

Shame colors other feelings and perceptions about the self. From reflections about his own personal experiences and observations regarding a particular manic‐depressive patient, the author discusses the evolution of his current clinical and theoretical understanding of shame. The framework of analytic self psychology is offered as a particularly useful perspective from which to consider shame, with its emphasis on the concept of selfobject to account both for shame's development (through selfobject misattunement and unresponsive‐ness) and for its amelioration (through empathic mirroring, idealization, and twinning). A developmental sequence for shame is advanced reflecting limitations in selfobject responsiveness, and problems are noted in the ability of current self psychology theory to fully account for the alleviation of shame. The self plays its part in the construction of those selfobjects needed to ease shame, representing the “one‐and‐a‐half‐person psychology”; of the paper's subtitle. Finally, the important role of countertransference shame is considered through a clinical example of therapist disclosure of his own shame to his patient, utilized in order to repair an interrupted kinship selfobject transference.     

The academic career: A model for future careers in other sectors?

In this paper we discuss and analyze the model of career that has been associated with the academic environment and compare that with past and present career contracts in the corporate environment. We also trace the evolution of the career model in the two institutions. We argue that the recent boundaryless or protean model of the corporate career represents a move toward the original view of the academic as an autonomous professional. And, in turn, it appears that careers in academe have moved toward more of a corporate direction, as universities have become more customer focused and business driven. Implications for these differences and similarities for universities and for corporations are discussed.     

The religioning of anthropology: New directions for the ethnographer‐pilgrim

Based on fieldwork in the state of Kerala, south India, Dempsey explores the ethnographical endeavour through the lens of religion. Applying religious categories such as pilgrimage and sainthood to examine the mechanics of ethnography, this essay investigates a spectrum of fieldwork motives and outcomes. Using the tourist and her quest as a comparative link between ethnographer and pilgrim, Dempsey proposes possible ‘religious’ motives in portraying the other as irretrievably exotic, in spite of evidence to the contrary, functioning as a kind of healing authenticity for modernity's banal existence. Dempsey notes that current trends in ethnography offer opportunities for an alternative kind of pilgrimage, based on attention to human intimacies that stem from extended fieldwork. These intimacies work to dash, sometimes begrudgingly, touristic ‘faith’ in unbreachable otherness, challenging the ethnographer to a conversion of sorts, and bringing her study back down to earth.     

The influence of culture on the self and selfobject relationships: An asian‐north american comparison

This essay first situates the development of self psychology within the culture of North American individualism, then delves into its relevance for understanding Asians, and comes full circle in reassessing what is universal or culturally variable in the current formulation of self psychology. The Asian self is compared with the North American one, and Asian familial hierarchical relationships with American egalitarian ones, resulting in a different cultural structuring of selfobject relationships, including the psychoanalytic one. A comparative psychology of idealizing selfobject relationships is then developed. Intercultural encounters between Asians and North Americans in the United States reveal problems in the interface because of the different culturally influenced selfobject relationships.     

The Argument from Underconsideration as Grounds for Anti‐realism: A Defence

The anti‐realist argument from underconsideration focuses on the fact that, when scientists evaluate theories, they only ever consider a subset of the theories that can account for the available data. As a result, when scientists judge one theory to be superior to competitor theories, they are not warranted in drawing the conclusion that the superior theory is likely true with respect to what it says about unobservable entities and processes. I defend the argument from underconsideration from the objections of Peter Lipton. I argue that the inconsistency that Lipton claims to find in the argument vanishes once we understand what the anti‐realist means when she claims that scientists are reliable. I also argue that collapsing the distinction between relative and absolute evaluations, as Lipton recommends, has its costs. Finally, I briefly examine Richard Boyd’s influential defence of realism.