To thy own self be true: finding the utility of cognitive information feedback

This study utilized Extended MSE Analysis to investigate the effects of two types of cognitive feedback on judgmental accuracy. Participants judged the income levels of respondents to the General Social Survey in both dilution and non‐dilution scenarios, received feedback, and then repeated those judgments. Task information feedback produced improvements in judgmental accuracy, and this improvement occurred primarily from a reduction in the standard deviation of participants' judgments and an increase in the consistency with which they applied their judgment policies. Cognitive information feedback produced little effect when presented alone, but produced accuracy gains superior to all other conditions when combined with task information. We conclude by discussing the specific conditions whereby each form of feedback is likely to be effective. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Approaching the true self: Promotion focus predicts the experience of authenticity

Research on subjective authenticity identifies several psychological antecedents that seem naturally tied to subjectively authentic experiences. Four studies (N = 525) tested the hypothesis that promotion focus (compared to prevention focus) represents another shared antecedent of subjective authenticity. Studies 1 and 2 examined correlations between regulatory focus and subjective authenticity in the context of goal-pursuit and interpersonal interactions. Studies 3 and 4 were within-subjects experiments designed to manipulate regulatory focus and examine the effects of promotion and prevention focus on subjective authenticity. Across all studies, we found that promotion focus (relative to prevention focus) was a robust predictor of subjective authenticity. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

The wise baby as the voice of the true self

Sandor Ferenczi wrote about a typical dream of the "Wise Baby" and later used this figure to represent the child who is traumatized into precocious wisdom, who becomes "the family psychiatrist." We discuss Ferenczi's theory of traumatization and the "split self," noting how it was taken up in D. W. Winnicott's "True Self/False Self" conceptualization. We then present three patients' wise baby dreams to show how these trauma theories can be used in dream interpretation and how dream interpretation can support them.     

Dissociation,the true self and the notion of the frozen baby

Abstract

The widespread ‘trauma talk’ that is prevalent in the social sciences, has, in recent years, become increasingly commonplace in psychoanalytic writings, especially in attachment theory and relational psychoanalysis. This paper examines dissociation, a key concept in ‘trauma theory’, in conjunction with the Winnicottian term ‘true self’, in the context of a particular discursive and theoretical combination of the two. This discursive formation is named ‘the frozen baby discourse’, and it is presented and analysed. A critique is offered of the way ‘true self’, understood as a humanistic concept, is often used together with dissociation, in order to create a theoretical construct that is far removed from Winnicottian theory. This paper begins by exploring definitional issues, both around dissociation and ‘true self’. It is subsequently argued that this contemporary usage of ‘true self’ in combination with dissociation has important implications for psychoanalytic practice.     

To be an honest person or not to be a cheater: Replicating the effect of messages relating to the self on unethical behaviour

Previous research has found that negative‐valence appeals relating to the self (Don't be a cheater) are more effective at reducing unethical behaviour than appeals relating to behaviour (Don't cheat). We aimed to replicate these findings and examine whether positive‐valence appeals relating to the self (Be an honest person) and to behaviour (Answer honestly) could have a similar effect. We ran five experiments with Israeli and U.S. samples, using social interaction and anonymous settings, and different methodologies: Die roll, coin‐flip and number choice. A meta‐analysis of the five experiments revealed a small effect of the self‐appeals relative to the behaviour‐appeals. These findings provide additional support for the theoretical explanation offered in terms of the role of the self in regulating unethical behaviour. However, the effect sizes found in our experiments were smaller than the ones previously reported. We discuss the merit in using self‐appeals to reduce unethical behaviour, the possible advantage of positive‐valence self‐appeals, and the possible moderating role of the setting in which the behaviour takes place: Social interaction versus anonymous settings.     

Existential crises in two religious patients: Vicissitudes of faith and the emergence of the true self

The authors present two clinical cases involving an existential crisis which led the patients to lose what had been the foundation in their lives, their faith. Although the therapeutic settings differ – the first patient had a few psychotherapy sessions following a psychotic episode with a mystical background, while the second was in the final stage of analytic treatment – the authors highlight how in both clinical cases a loss of faith becomes a total and urgent crisis of the Self. The fracture which ensues seems to generate an intense engagement of the body which, paradoxically during a loss of faith, induces an experience of ecstasy of the kind that has traditionally been reported. In the first case the experience of ecstasy was lived first‐hand by the patient who thereafter redefined the psychotic breakdown as a “moment of truth”; whereas the second patient, through a deep projective identification, induces an eerie countertransferential feeling of ‘metaphysical’ shortfall in the agnostic psychoanalyst, triggering bewilderment, physical discomfort and awe in him. In both cases the authors believe that the notable somatic involvement may be correlated to a potentially profound and unprecedented contact with the True Self.     

Free to be me: The relationship between the true self,rejection sensitivity,and use of online dating sites

Prior research (Blackhart et al., 2014) found that rejection-sensitive individuals are more likely to use online dating sites. The purpose of the current research was to explain the relationship between rejection sensitivity and online dating site usage. Study 1 examined whether true self mediated the relation between rejection sensitivity and online dating. Study 2 sought to replicate the findings of Study 1 and to examine whether self-disclosure moderated the relationship between true self and online dating in the mediation model. Results replicated those found by Blackhart et al. and also found that true self mediated the relationship between rejection sensitivity and online dating site usage. These findings suggest that rejection-sensitive individuals feel they can more easily represent their “true” selves in online environments, such as online dating sites, which partially explains why they are more likely to engage in online dating.     

To Tell or Not to Tell: Disclosure and the Narrative Self

ABSTRACT Drawing from a narrative identity framework, we present the results of three studies examining the nature of what people do and do not disclose about their life experiences. Across three studies, our findings indicate that (1) the major difference in what people do and do not disclose concerns the emotionality of the events and whether or not the events are transgressions; (2) for everyday memorable events, increased negative emotion is associated with greater likelihood of disclosure; but (3) for more important and/or longer retained events, increased negative and decreased positive emotion were associated with lower likelihoods of disclosure. We also found that socioemotional consequences are an important reason for nondisclosure of important past experiences and are predictably related to the extent to which events induce positive and negative emotions. Findings are considered in terms of their implications for narrative identity.     

Enacting the self: Buddhist and Enactivist approaches to the emergence of the self

In this paper, I take up the problem of the self through bringing together the insights, while correcting some of the shortcomings, of Indo–Tibetan Buddhist and enactivist accounts of the self. I begin with an examination of the Buddhist theory of non-self (anātman) and the rigorously reductionist interpretation of this doctrine developed by the Abhidharma school of Buddhism. After discussing some of the fundamental problems for Buddhist reductionism, I turn to the enactive approach to philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I argue that human beings, as dynamic systems, are characterized by a high degree of self-organizing autonomy. Therefore, human beings are not reducible to the more basic mental and physical events that constitute them. I critically examine Francisco Varela’s enactivist account of the self as virtual and his use of Buddhist ideas in support of this view. I argue, in contrast, that while the self is emergent and constructed, it is not merely virtual. Finally I sketch a Buddhist-enactivist account of the self. I argue for a non-reductionist view of the self as an active, embodied, embedded, self-organizing process—what the Buddhists call ‘I’-making (ahaṃkāra). This emergent process of self-making is grounded in the fundamentally recursive processes that characterize lived experience: autopoiesis at the biological level, temporalization and self-reference at the level of conscious experience, and conceptual and narrative construction at the level of intersubjectivity. In Buddhist terms, I will develop an account of the self as dependently originated and empty, but nevertheless real.     

Building to discover: a common coding model

I present a case study of scientific discovery, where building two functional and behavioral approximations of neurons, one physical and the other computational, led to conceptual and implementation breakthroughs in a neural engineering laboratory. Such building of external systems that mimic target phenomena, and the use of these external systems to generate novel concepts and control structures, is a standard strategy in the new engineering sciences. I develop a model of the cognitive mechanism that connects such built external systems with internal models, and I examine how new discoveries, and consensus on discoveries, could arise from this external-internal coupling and the building process. The model is based on the emerging framework of common coding, which proposes a shared representation in the brain between the execution, perception, and imagination of movement.