The Meaning of Xing 形and Moral Transformation in Wuxing

The popular reading of xing yu nei 形於內 (being actualized from the internal) in Wuxing creates a predicament in the understanding of “xing 行 (behaviors)” which is not xing yu nei. As stated in Wuxing and other early Confucian texts, including The Doctrine of the Mean, The Great Learning, the Mencius and Xunzi, xing 形 is a process involving multidimensional content including not only deliberated decisions and actions, but also attitudes, facial expressions, and even the charisma that possesses power to transform the world. Xing 形 always operates in an effortless natural style, rather than under cognitive control. Xing yu nei signifies that virtues are possessed to a perfectly deep degree. Therefore, “not xing yu nei” does not mean that “behaviors” are forced by external pressure and thus hypocritical, but rather that although they also originate from internal virtues, the virtues in this case are not deep enough to enable multidimensional and natural manifestations. Xing 行, representing the way of the “human,” is the approach to and is on a continuum with “de zhi xing 德之行 (the behavior of Virtue),” which matches the way of Heaven. Shendu 慎 獨requires paying close attention to and regulating the intentions and emotions emerging at the heart/mind, which is the fundamental work when making the effort of “xing” towards “de zhi xing.”     

The “Gongfu Finger” and Learning in the Analects

After having discussed three main features of Ni Peimin’s understanding of the gongfu orientation in reading the Analects, this essay examines the first of the key terms in the whole of the book, i.e., xue/”learning” (學) and critically elaborates how our understanding of Confucius could be deepened and enriched under the guidance of this new orientation which Ni calls the “gongfu finger.”     

What do children know about the universal quantifiers all and each?

Children's comprehension of the universal quantifiers all and each was explored in a series of experiments using a picture selection task. The first experiment examined children's ability to restrict a quantifier to the noun phrase it modifies. The second and third experiments examined children's ability to associate collective, distributive, and exhaustive representations with sentences containing universal quantifiers. The collective representation corresponds to the “group” meaning (for All the flowers are in a vase all of the flowers are in the same vase). The distributive representation implies a pairing (e.g., each flower paired with a vase for Each flower is in a vase). The exhaustive representation exhausts both sets (e.g., for The flowers are in the vases all the flowers are in vases and all the vases have flowers in them). Four- to 10-year-old children had little difficulty restricting the quantifier all to the noun it modified in a task which required them to attend to the group feature of all. In contrast, only 9- and 10-year-olds were able to solve the task when the quantifier was each and the pictures showed entities in partial one-to-one correspondence. Children showed a preference for associating collective pictures with sentences containing all and distributive pictures with sentences containing each. The results suggest that between the ages of 5 and 10 years, children's semantic representations undergo less radical changes than others have proposed. Instead, developmental change may occur gradually as children acquire linguistic cues which map onto existing semantic representations.     

The self-efficacy-interest relationship and RIASEC type: Which is figure and which is ground? Comment on Armstrong and Vogel (2009)

Armstrong and Vogel (2009) proposed that the differences between self-efficacy and interests are a matter of measurement artifact rather than substance. In tests of this hypothesis, they conceived of self-efficacy and interest as observed indicators of larger RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) types and as response method factors. We revisit the authors' theoretical assumptions, measurement procedures, analyses, and interpretation of findings. When viewing this study in the context of the larger literature, we find ample support for the construal of self-efficacy and interests as distinct but related constructs. In addition, we examine the authors' reanalysis of earlier longitudinal findings, reaching different conclusions than they did about the nature of the temporal relations among the social cognitive variables. Ultimately, whether one wishes to highlight or minimize the differences between interest and self-efficacy may largely depend on whether one's purpose is explanation (e.g., how do people make career-relevant choices?) or classification (e.g., which RIASEC type does a person most resemble?).     

Rethinking Organizational Change: Implications from the Chinese Shi 勢

Much of conventional organizational thinking and practice has been dominated by a belief in stability, with change deemed a disruptive and temporary aberration in the larger scheme of things. This mindset ignores the dynamic, living complexity of organizational life and very likely leads to static management approaches which hinder and sometimes even destroy an organization’s effectiveness by restricting its ability to adapt to turbulent and chaotic events. The Chinese notion of shi is embedded in the ancient Chinese appreciation of reality, which saw change and transformation as an endless flow and an essential feature of the universe; shi is implied by the process of change and can be made to act in one’s favor. As a strategy, shi offers us salutary lessons in modern organizational research and practice: rather than merely trying to control every chain of management and avoid chaos and uncertainty by relying on planning and modeling, organizations should also maintain a tentative and alert sensibility concerning the inherent potential of the changing situation, and should be carried along by it as it evolves.     

At the first sign of trouble or through thick and thin? When nonconformity is and is not disengagement from a group

The current research tests the prediction that nonconformity can reflect engagement with rather than disengagement from social groups. We present two studies that contained indices of both nonconformity and disengagement to examine their relationship under different circumstances and to dissociate two forms of nonconformity: individually oriented vs. collectively oriented. Study 1 demonstrates that thinking about how a group norm may cause individual harm triggers a type of nonconformity that is associated with disengagement from the group, whereas thinking about how a norm may cause collective harm triggers a type of nonconformity that is not associated with disengagement. Study 2 investigates the relationship between nonconformity and disengagement among group members that vary in their level of collective identification. We demonstrate that whereas nonconformity among weakly identified group members is associated with disengagement, this is not the case among strong identifiers.     

Gender and values: What is the impact on decision making?

In this study we investigated C. Gilligan's [(1982), In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press] suggestion that women and men, due to socialization, develop differently in terms of moral development [L. Kohlberg (1969), “Stage and Consequence: The Cognitive Development Approach to Socialization,” In D. G. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research, Chicago: Rand McNally]. We also considered whether men and women differ in terms of a related construct, values of equity and equality [K. A. Rasinski (1987), “What's Fair Is Fair or Is It? Value Differences Underlying Public Views About Social Justice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 53, pp. 201–211]. It is our expectation that gender influences overall orientation in terms of the two sets of values, and that differences in values lead decision makers to weigh decision issues and to make final decisions differently. Results suggest that there are some gender-related differences in value systems, weights of decision issues, and final decisions.     

Predicting anxiety and depression from personality: is there a synergistic effect of neuroticism and extraversion?

In a longitudinal study of college students, B. S. Gershuny and K. J. Sher (1998) found that high neuroticism and low extraversion had a synergistic effect in predicting anxiety and depression 3 years later. This article attempted to replicate their finding using data from 2 community samples: (a) a cross-sectional survey of 2,677 persons aged 18-79 years, and (b) a longitudinal study in which 441 persons aged 70 or older were followed over 3-4 years. Both studies found that neuroticism predicted anxiety and depression, but there were no Neuroticism x Extraversion interaction effects. These results cast doubt on the generalizability of the original findings.     

When disfluency is—and is not—a desirable difficulty: The influence of typeface clarity on metacognitive judgments and memory

There are many instances in which perceptual disfluency leads to improved memory performance, a phenomenon often referred to as the perceptual-interference effect (e.g., Diemand-Yauman, Oppenheimer, & Vaughn (Cognition 118:111–115, 2010); Nairne (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 14:248–255, 1988)). In some situations, however, perceptual disfluency does not affect memory (Rhodes & Castel (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 137:615–625, 2008)), or even impairs memory (Glass, (Psychology and Aging 22:233–238, 2007)). Because of the uncertain effects of perceptual disfluency, it is important to establish when disfluency is a “desirable difficulty” (Bjork, 1994) and when it is not, and the degree to which people’s judgments of learning (JOLs) reflect the consequences of processing disfluent information. In five experiments, our participants saw multiple lists of blurred and clear words and gave JOLs after each word. The JOLs were consistently higher for the perceptually fluent items in within-subjects designs, which accurately predicted the pattern of recall performance when the presentation time was short (Exps. 1a and 2a). When the final test was recognition or when the presentation time was long, however, we found no difference in recall for clear and blurred words, although JOLs continued to be higher for clear words (Exps. 2b and 3). When fluency was manipulated between subjects, neither JOLs nor recall varied between formats (Exp. 1b). This study suggests a boundary condition for the desirable difficulty of perceptual disfluency and indicates that a visual distortion, such as blurring a word, may not always induce the deeper processing necessary to create a perceptual-interference effect.     

What is learned in knowledge-related categories? Evidence from typicality and feature frequency judgments

When a category’s features are tied together by integrative knowledge, subjects learn the category faster than when the features are not directly related. What do subjects learn about the category in such circumstances? Some research has suggested that the subjects can use the knowledge itself in performing the category learning task and, thus, do not learn the details of the category’s features. Two experiments investigated this hypothesis by collecting feature frequency estimates after category learning. The results showed that integrative knowledge about a category did not decrease subjects’ sensitivity to feature frequency—if anything, knowledge improved it. A third experiment found that integrative knowledge did reduce sensitivity to feature frequency in typicality ratings. The results suggest that knowledge does not inhibit the learning of detailed category information, though it may replace its use in some tasks.     

Why is working memory related to intelligence? Different contributions from storage and processing

Domain-specific contributions of working memory (WM), short-term memory (STM), and executive functioning (EF) to individual differences in intelligence were analysed using a latent variable approach. A sample of 345 participants completed a battery of 24 tests tapping the constructs of interests as comprehensively as possible. Visuospatial and verbal STM and WM tasks were administered along with three subcomponents of EF, namely inhibition, planning, and shifting. Intelligence was assessed by non-verbal/abstract/fluid intelligence (Gf) and verbal/crystallised intelligence (Gc) standardised tests. Structural equation modelling results show that EF is the main predictor of Gf, whereas verbal STM is the main predictor of Gc. Storage and processing providing different contributions to the prediction of Gf and Gc supports the view that both short-term storage and executive functioning account for the relationship between WM and intelligence. This main conclusion stresses the importance of acknowledging core cognitive constructs as being hierarchical systems with general and domain-specific mechanisms.     

How phonetic is selective adaptation? Experiments on syllable position and vowel environment

In several cases, the acoustic cues underlying a given phoneme depend heavily on its context. The selective adaptation method (Eimas & Corbit, 1973) was used to investigate the existence of detectors sensitive to consonants in any environment, irrespective of their acoustic properties. The first experiment concerned consonants in initial and final position. Repeated presentation of a CV syllable had an adapting effect on a CV continuum but not on a VC continuum. The converse was also true. In a second experiment, a detector for C₁V₁ was fatigued by repeated presentation of C₁V₂, even though the adapting C₁ had very little acoustically in common with the test C₁. It is concluded that there are detectors for phonemes, or possibly features, which respond to a fairly abstract representation of the input, but not so abstract that a C is represented the same in initial and final position.     

What is a TOT? Cognate and translation effects on tip-of-the-tongue states in Spanish-English and tagalog-English bilinguals

The authors induced tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs) for English words in monolinguals and bilinguals using picture stimuli with cognate (e.g., vampire, which is vampiro in Spanish) and noncognate (e.g., funnel, which is embudo in Spanish) names. Bilinguals had more TOTs than did monolinguals unless the target pictures had translatable cognate names, and bilinguals had fewer TOTs for noncognates they were later able to translate. TOT rates for the same targets in monolinguals indicated that these effects could not be attributed to target difficulty. Two popular TOT accounts must be modified to explain cognate and translatability facilitation effects, and cross-language interference cannot explain bilinguals' increased TOTs rates. Instead the authors propose that, relative to monolinguals, bilinguals are less able to activate representations specific to each language.     

A Contemporary Re-Examination of Confucian Li 禮 and Human Dignity

In modern Western liberal discourse, human dignity has been cast as an important component of basic human rights, while so-called human rights have been generally understood as certain inborn, inherent and inalienable properties of every human being. In this understanding, human dignity is just a natural endowment rather than a historically constructed social-cultural phenomenon. Based on this premise, liberalism is justified for the reason that under a social condition of complete freedom, individuals will spontaneously exercise their rights thus to secure their dignity. However, from a Confucian point of view, human dignity is socially defined and exists in concrete forms in social-cultural contexts. Dignity is not an abstract, universal, minimal standard that can be applied to all people at every time; it refers to individuals’ decency and grace under various given social contexts, and it corresponds to particular roles, statuses and even ages and genders of individuals in their respective societies. The full realization of human dignity relies on certain social-cultural or institutional arrangements. Confucian li is precisely this kind of arrangement, which designs a whole set of regulations and norms in order to maintain human dignity in general, as well as to maintain different people’s dignity in varying situations. Therefore, according to Confucianism, behaving appropriately according to the norms and regulations of li is just a way to preserve dignity.     

What is a Minor Philosophy? A Conversation on Thinking from the Periphery in a Global World

This is the text of a conversation that follows up on Roberto Farneti??s article ??A Minor Philosophy: The State of the Art of Philosophical Scholarship in Italy?? published in Philosophia 38 (1) 2009: 1?C28. After a brief introductory note that details the reception of the article in Italy, Ferrara and Farneti engage in a conversation on the notion of ??minor philosophy?? and on the meaning and future of philosophizing ??from the periphery?? in a globalized world. The text is followed by a short Appendix, a reply to Annalisa Coliva??s commentary on Farneti??s article.