Feelings,Imagination and Self-Understanding

Starting from some considerations about the text ‘Feelings in Literature’ by Johansen (2010), this article discusses the topic of emotions from the standpoint of moral psychology, namely the relationship between emotions and the conduct of our moral life. From this assumption, we will argue that literature, as an exercise of imagination, helps us understand and evaluate our own emotions, what is essential for establishing our uniqueness, distinguishing ourselves from others. In literature we can learn about emotions and we can understand our own feelings. Literature plays an important role in cultural experience, triggering emotional responses.     

Delusions,Acceptances, and Cognitive Feelings

Psychopathological delusions have a number of features that are curiously difficult to explain. Delusions are resistant to counterevidence and impervious to counterargument. Delusions are theoretically, affectively, and behaviorally circumscribed: delusional individuals often do not act on their delusions and often do not update beliefs on the basis of their delusions. Delusional individuals are occasionally able to distinguish their delusions from other beliefs, sometimes speaking of their “delusional reality.” To explain these features, I offer a model according to which, contrary to appearances, delusions are not beliefs at all. Delusions are acceptances that are generated by pathologically powerful cognitive feelings. This model has implications for the way that we should think about non‐pathological doxastic states and emotions.     

Social Motives,Emotional Feelings,and Smiling

Previous research has established that the facial displays of those who listen to stories are influenced by the social context in which this happens. H owever, experienced affect was not measured in these studies, and the story stimuli were not systematically manipulated. We report a study in which participants listened to stories that varied in rated funniness, and that were told by either a friend or a stranger via one of the following channels: Tape recorder, telephone, or face-to-face. D ependent measures included facial activity, subjective feelings, and social motives. We anticipated that facial displays would be influenced by story type and by social context, and that the former effects would be mediated by experienced affect, whereas the latter effects would be mediated by social motives. The funnier story elicited more smiling, but this was not mediated by experienced affect. Social context also influenced smiling, and this effect appeared to be mediated by social motives.     

Feelings,direction of attention,and expressed evaluations of others

Abstract

Noting the occasional inconsistency in the results of studies of the effects of negative affect on thoughts and actions in social situations, it is suggested that: (1) self-regulatory mechanisms sometimes intervene to determine what people experiencing unpleasant feeling will say (and maybe think) about others around them; and (2) at least some of these mechanisms may have to be activated by relatively high-level cognitive processing and are not always operative. More specifically. the theoretical analysis presented here holds that many different kinds of negative affect will prime thoughts having a negative meaning, including unfavourable judgements of others. However, negative affect does not always lead to openly expressed negative opinions and actions. It is proposed that attention to one's moderately unpleasant feelings tends to moderate the effect of negative affect on subsequent negative thoughts and actions by activating “higher-level” cognitive processing so that consideration is given to different kinds of knowledge pertinent to the given situation, including the social rules defining what is desirable and whatever relevant information is provided in the situation. Two experiments are reported, employing greatly different procedures and subjects of both sexes. in support of this analysis. The seeming disparity between the present conception and self-awareness theory is also discussed. and it is noted that these formulations are actually not at odds. Suggestions are made for further research.     

The Experience of Agency: Feelings, Judgments, and Responsibility

ABSTRACT— The experience of agency refers to the experience of being in control both of one's own actions and, through them, of events in the external world. Recent experimental studies have investigated how people recognise a particular event as being caused by their own action or by that of another person. These studies suggest that people match sensory inputs to a prediction based on the action they are performing. Other studies have contrasted voluntary actions to physically similar but passive body movements. These studies suggest that voluntary action triggers wide-ranging changes in the spatial and temporal experience not only of one's own body but also of external events. Prediction and monitoring of the consequences of one's own motor commands produces characteristic experiences that form our normal, everyday feeling of being in control of our life. We conclude by discussing the implications of recent psychological work for our notions of responsibility for action.     

Emotional Feelings

Abstract

There is a fear of death that persistently eludes adequate explanation from contemporary philosophers of death. The reason for this is their focus on mortal harm issues, such as why death is bad for the person who dies. Claims regarding the fear of death are assumed to be contingent on the resolution of questions about the badness of death. In practice, however, consensus on some mortal harm issues has not resulted in comparable clarity on mortal fear. I contend we cannot do justice to fear of death unless we detach it from theories about the badness of death, including the overwhelmingly popular deprivation theory. The case for this involves disambiguation of certain aspects of mortal harm, a broad conception of what is involved in accounting for an emotion, and close attention to the nature of the fear in question. The source of fear of death is our departure from a context in which self-directed emotions have coherent application; our attitudes become ‘unmoored’, in Samuel Scheffler’s phrase. While this does not result in a fear that is sui generis, it does demand that we remove the object of fear from the realm of well-being in order to make sense of it.     

Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings

Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch the plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant sense) is for its members to be jointly committed to intend that such-and-such as a body. Individual group members need not be directly involved in the formation of the intention in order to participate in such a joint commitment. The core concept of joint commitment is in an important way holistic, not being reducible to a set of personal commitments over which each party holds sway. Parties to a group intention so understood can reasonably see the resulting action as "ours" as opposed to "theirs" and thus appropriately respond to the action's badness with a feeling of guilt, even when they themselves are morally innocent in the matter. I label the feeling in question a feeling of "membership guilt." A number of standard philosophical claims about the nature of guilt feelings are thrown into question by my argument.     

Feelings in Literature

In this article it is argued that feelings are all important to the function of literature. In contradiction to music that is concerned with the inwardness of humankind, literature has, because of language, the capacity to create fictional worlds that in many respects are similar to and related to the life world within which we live. One of the most important reasons for our emotional engagement in literature is our empathy with others and our constant imagining and hypothesizing on possible developments in our interactions with them. Hence, we understand and engage ourselves in fictional worlds. It is further claimed and exemplified, how poetic texts are very good at rhetorically engage and manipulate our feelings. Finally, with reference to the important work of Ellen Dissanayake, it is pointed out that the first kind of communication in which we engage, that between mother and infant, is a kind of speech that positively engages the infant in a dialogue with the mother by means of poetic devices.     

Actions,Feelings, and Values: Foundations of Meaning and Personhood in Dementia

SUMMARY

Viktor Frankl's writings on the sources of meaning in human life are compared to emergent views on personhood in older individuals with dementing illnesses. An ethnomethodological study of a CBRF (community based residential facility) with two sections, each housing about 10 persons, revealed meaning in residents' actions, feelings, and expressions of values. These individuals showed it is possible to retain what Frankl called “tragic optimism” despite cognitive deterioration. Through active engagement with their environments and with one another, a wide range of expressed emotions including happiness and humor, and caring sensitivity toward others, these elders showed that given a supportive environment, dementia does not destroy meaning. These observations form the basis of suggestions for pastoral care and ministry with people with dementia.     

暴力电脑游戏对个体攻击性的影响

以75名大学生为被试,采用3×2×2被试间设计,探讨电脑游戏暴力对个体的攻击性行为、攻击性情绪和攻击性认知的影响。结果表明:(1)暴力电脑游戏导致个体的攻击性行为增加。游戏与性别和攻击性特质的两重和三重交互作用不显著;(2)暴力电脑游戏对个体的攻击性情绪无显著影响;(3)暴力电脑游戏启动了攻击性认知。游戏、性别和攻击特质这三个变量在攻击性认知上交互作用显著,对于男性,暴力电脑游戏在高攻击性个体身上比低攻击性个体启动了更多的攻击性认知;对于女性,暴力电脑游戏对高低攻击性个体攻击性认知的启动没有显著差异。     

Hybrid Identifications,Mixed Feelings: Reply to Commentaries

In responding to the insightful papers of Suchet and White I explore further my own hybrid identifications in regard to the socially constructed category of race. The paper explores the dangers of both idealization and denigration of otherness. It shows how a traumatic confrontation with otherness may destabilize later identifications in favor of earlier more archaic ones. Melanie Suchet, in her very gracious response to my paper, comments that I refuse to “reside in the comfortable.” However, any wish I may have had to reside in the comfortable was derailed by the thought-provoking comments of both Melanie Suchet and Cleonie White. Both authors prompted me to confront myself and to examine a number of painful issues. These included not only a resistance to owning my own vicarious traumatization but the fact that I was subject to the return of the repressed as the personal meanings of the signifier black shifted and changed in the course of my paper. But most significantly, both authors confronted me with the challenge of Otherness.