Contemplating the Self: A Brief Phenomenological Participatory Action Study

This study examines Self contemplation from a heuristic phenomenological and applied psychological perspective using a participatory action research approach. The participant authors (n = 6; females = 50%, majority ethnicity = isiZulu = 67%) engaged in reflective contemplation of the Self to generate qualitative data that captured its core features and psychological applications. The data were thematically analyzed. Core features of the Self were revealed in contemplative, spiritual, ancestral, healing and psychotherapeutic themes. Specific psychological applications consisted of various universal characteristics of healing including the therapeutic relationship, therapeutic moments, integrity, dialogue, authenticity, intentionality, will, belief, practice and breath-work.     

经验现象学心理学:乔治对胡塞尔现象学的继承与发展

美国现象学心理学家阿米多·乔治基于科学和心理学视角所提出的经验现象学心理学是对胡塞尔现象学的继承和发展。这表现为:在批判对象上,从胡塞尔的反二元论细化为反自然科学心理学;在出发点和基本原则上,将胡塞尔的生活世界、意向性、还原等概念从超验层面放置到经验层面;在研究方法上,从胡塞尔的描述还原过程转向具体的描述现象学心理学方法。本质上,乔治的经验现象学心理学与胡塞尔的现象学一脉相承,不仅完美地展示了后者的基本原理,更在具体概念和操作应用上充实且超越了后者。     

Phenomenological features of dreams: Results from dream log studies using the Subjective Experiences Rating Scale (SERS)

Self-ratings of dream experiences were obtained from 144 college women for 788 dreams, using the Subjective Experiences Rating Scale (SERS). Consistent with past studies, dreams were characterized by a greater prevalence of vision, audition, and movement than smell, touch, or taste, by both positive and negative emotion, and by a range of cognitive processes. A Principal Components Analysis of SERS ratings revealed ten subscales: four sensory, three affective, one cognitive, and two structural (events/actions, locations). Correlations (Pearson r) among subscale means showed a stronger relationship among the process-oriented features (sensory, cognitive, affective) than between the process-oriented and content-centered (structural) features—a pattern predicted from past research (e.g., Bulkeley & Kahan, 2008). Notably, cognition and positive emotion were associated with a greater number of other phenomenal features than was negative emotion; these findings are consistent with studies of the qualitative features of waking autobiographical memory (e.g., Fredrickson, 2001).     

意识状态改变的心理生理学理论与实证研究

从“意识状态”解释人类意识的本质是当前意识心理学研究的一个重要取向。研究意识状态改变(ASC)的物质生理基础具有十分突出的理论和临床实践意义。意识状态改变可以分为自发、物理和生理原因、心理方式和疾病引起这样四个方面,不同类型的意识状态改变可以从激活、意识域、自我觉察和感觉振荡四个维度进行综合归类和分析。不仅脑结构功能状态、脑动力的暂时变化、神经化学过程和新陈代谢过程等因素影响着人的意识经验改变状态,而且环境变化、心理活动和自我控制及技巧也可以暂时改变人的意识功能状态。     

Integrating complementary and alternative therapies into psychological practice: A qualitative analysis

Although complementary and alternative therapies (CATs) are utilised widely for treating psychological disorders, little research has examined psychologists' beliefs about integrating CAT into psychological practice. Six practicing psychologists and six psychology students were interviewed about their CAT integration beliefs, in particular integrating CAT into clinical practice via recommending CATs, offering referrals to CAT practitioners, or undertaking training to utilise CATs within psychological practice. Guided broadly from a theory of planned behaviour perspective, participants raised a number of costs and benefits, discussed referent groups who would influence their decisions, and suggested motivators and barriers for integration. A number of additional themes were raised, including risks, such as the possibility of litigation and the need for clear Society guidelines, as most participants were unclear about what constitutes appropriate practice. Identifying these themes serves as an important initial step to informing discussion and policy for this emerging practice issue within psychology.     

Psychology of the Lvov-Warsaw School and the shape of postcommunist Polish psychology (unfinished dialog with Brentanian tradition)

This article presents the development of Polish psychology from the perspective of the most important intellectual formation in Poland—the Lvov-Warsaw School of Kazimierz Twardowski. The representatives of the school played an extraordinary role in the history of Polish psychology in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this influence was halted by the outbreak of the war in 1939 and by communist oppression and propaganda after the war. After 1989, Polish psychology underwent a deep transformation in the spirit of Western psychology but with no continuation of the most significant achievements of Twardowski's School. Although this process has integrated Polish psychologists into the mainstream of psychology in the world, it has not led to the integration of one of the most original European psychological traditions into world psychology.     

Thought recognition and psychological well‐being: An empirical test of principle based correctional counselling

Aims: To determine the relationship between thought recognition, a major construct of principle‐based correctional counselling, and psychological wellbeing. Method: Following several weekly group sessions of Principle‐Based Correctional Counselling, 54 adult prisoners on probation completed two measures of thought recognition and the Well‐Being Inventory. In a follow‐up study, 30 participants completed the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale. Results: Significant positive relationships were found between both measures of thought recognition and psychological wellbeing and, in the follow‐up study, both measures of thought recognition and mindfulness. Discussion: Possible explanations for the relationship between thought recognition and psychological wellbeing, and thought recognition and mindfulness are discussed. Implications for practice: Teaching correctional clients the principles behind generic human psychological functioning, and the innate design behind human thinking, appears to improve their thinking and draw out their innate healthy functioning.     

唤醒定义探析及其认知神经生理基础

唤醒是衡量机体清醒程度和做出反应前准备程度的指标, 其水平可从睡眠到觉醒的连续体上变化, 具有独特的生理机制与神经回路。由于唤醒与情绪关联密切, 唤醒度这个概念常被认为等同于情绪强度, 但情绪强度实际上是唤醒和效价的和向量。受到Lazarus提出的“刺激”定义情绪思想的启发, 对唤醒的内含和心理机制进行了探析, 发现对不符合预期刺激出现的紧急准备是唤醒系统的主要功能, 预期性相关机制是唤醒的重要认知加工机制。其它因素(刺激属性、个体差异等)可能存在以下影响唤醒的原因：改变处理刺激时所需的资源量、影响预期机制。未来研究可从心理唤醒与生理唤醒的关系、唤醒的测量方法、唤醒度与情绪强度的关系、人类临床精神疾病的唤醒特征等角度推动唤醒的基础和应用研究。     

Exile and return: from phenomenology to naturalism (and back again)

Abstract

Naturalism in twentieth century philosophy is founded on the rejection of ‘first philosophy’, as can be seen in Quine’s rejection of what he calls ‘cosmic exile’. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology falls within the scope of what naturalism rejects, but I argue that the opposition between phenomenology and naturalism is less straightforward than it appears. This is so not because transcendental phenomenology does not involve a problematic form of exile, but because naturalism, in its recoil from transcendental philosophy, creates a new form of exile, what I call in the paper ‘exile from within’. These different forms of exile are the result of shared epistemological aspirations, which, if set aside, leave open the possibility of phenomenology without exile. In the conclusion of the paper, I appeal to Merleau-Ponty as an example of what phenomenology without epistemology might look like.     

Development and validation of a test on Anasakti (non-attachment): an Indian model of well-being

Deriving our theoretical model from the Hindu religious text Srimad Bhagvad Gita, gaps in the existing frameworks on the concept of Anasakti (non-attachment) were found. The purpose of the study was to develop and test psychometric properties of a scale based on this Indian concept. We pooled 46 items which included items from existing scales as well as new items. The data were collected from 366 students (236 females and 130 males; mean age?=?23.55 years, SD?=?8.30 years). The final scale consists of 22 items comprising six subscales: Outcome Vulnerability, Faith in God, Empathy, Frustration Tolerance, Effort Orientation and Emotional Equipoise. The scale is psychometrically robust, explaining 50.79 per cent of variance and also acceptable levels of reliability (α?=?.70). We tested for convergent validity by correlating the new scale with the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE), the Mental Health Continuum (MHC) and the Flourishing Scale (FS). The new scale demonstrated acceptable convergent validity showing significant positive correlation with SPANE-P, SPANE-B, FS and MHC (.23?<?r?<?.38, p?<?.01) and a significant negative correlation with SPANE-N (r?=??.29, p?<?.01).     

孝的多维心理结构：取向之异与古今之变

孝的内在结构具有多面性, 但以往孝的量表存在信效度不高、掺入研究者主观意图、遗漏重要因素等弊端。研究通过经典文本改编和被试自由生成而编制条目, 通过因素分析与效标分析等方法考察孝的结构( 总样本量 = 1725), 发现孝包含尊敬安乐父母、服从父母、和颜对待父母、守身不辱父母、陪伴父母、扬名以显父母、思慕父母、不干涉父母、劝谏父母, 九因素结构具有良好的信效度。不同因素与效标变量(家庭自我概念、家庭弹性、父母教养方式、亲子边界不当、自立人格、服从倾向)具有不同的关联模式。这些发现反映出儒学论孝的敬慕之别、敬顺之变。此外讨论了不同因素的古今变迁。     

Open your eyes and look harder! (An investigation into the idea of a responsible visual search)

In this paper, I explore and defend the idea that we have epistemic responsibilities with respect to our visual searches, responsibilities that are far more fine‐grained and interesting than the trivial responsibilities to keep our eyes open and “look hard.” In order to have such responsibilities, we must be able to exert fine‐grained and interesting forms of control over our visual searches. I present both an intuitive case and an empirical case for thinking that we do, in fact, have such forms of control over our visual searches. I then show how these forms of control can be used to aim the visual beliefs that result from our searches toward various epistemic goals.     

Visual expertise does not predict the composite effect across species: A comparison between spider (Ateles geoffroyi) and rhesus (Macaca mulatta) monkeys

Humans are subject to the composite illusion: two identical top halves of a face are perceived as “different” when they are presented with different bottom halves. This observation suggests that when building a mental representation of a face, the underlying system perceives the whole face, and has difficulty decomposing facial features. We adapted a behavioural task that measures the composite illusion to examine the perception of faces in two nonhuman species. Specifically we had spider (Ateles geoffroyi) and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) perform a two-forced choice, match-to-sample task where only the top half of sample was relevant to the task. The results of Experiment 1 show that spider monkeys (N = 2) process the faces of familiar species (conspecifics and humans, but not chimpanzees, sheep, or sticks), holistically. The second experiment tested rhesus monkeys (N = 7) with the faces of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, sheep, and sticks. Contrary to prediction, there was no evidence of a composite effect in the human (or familiar primate) condition. Instead, we present evidence of a composite illusion in the chimpanzee condition (an unfamiliar primate). Together, these experiments show that visual expertise does not predict the composite effect across the primate order.     

宗教心理-鬼神心理疾病—濒死体验的诊断与预后

濒死体验是科学现象而不是灵学现象,有初步问卷和最终量表可供筛查和诊断;是心理疾病而不是精神病。美国精神病学学会《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》标定为“宗教—鬼神问题”。除非获得适当的心理治疗与社会心理康复,患者预后不良。     

Occupational segregation and psychological gender differences: How empathizing and systemizing help explain the distribution of men and women into (some) occupations

The proportion of men and women workers varies among occupation types. There are several factors that may contribute to occupational segregation by gender. Using a large U.S. sample (n = 2149), we examine the extent to which occupational segregation can be attributed to gender differences in empathizing and systematizing: Psychological dimensions which theorists argue represent meaningful differences between men and women. Of the eight occupational categories for which employee gender and occupation type were associated at the p < .01 level, four of these – Construction, Professional/Scientific/Technical fields, Management, and Education – were partially mediated by systemizing and/or empathizing scores, which typically accounted for 10–20% of the observed gender differences. For other areas, like Health, gender differences were not mediated by either measure.     

A magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) investigation into brain metabolite correlates of ability emotional intelligence

The neurobiological basis of Emotional Intelligence (EI), which relates to our cognitive capacity to deal with emotions, is yet to be firmly established; although the amygdala and the dlPFC have been identified as two key brain regions required for emotional understanding and management. While proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H MRS) has previously been used to examine the in vivo neurochemical processes associated with psychiatric disorders, personality and general intelligence, this technique is yet to be applied to the construct of EI. In the current study, associations between the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT V2.0), the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and Choline (Cho) concentrations in the amygdala and dlPFC were investigated in thirty healthy participants (15 males with a mean age of 24.9 ± 2.7 years; 15 females with a mean age of 25.2 ± 4.5 years). A significant association between left dlPFC Cho concentrations and MSCEIT Managing Emotions was found, together with a significant association between left Amygdala Cho concentration and MSCEIT Understanding Emotions. In contrast, NAA resonance was found to be unrelated to ability EI in these regions. Possible interpretations of increased Cho resonance in association with ability EI are discussed, including increased myelin turnover in the amygdala and dlPFC which contributes to enhanced emotional processing.     

厚重翔实、特色鲜明的专著--黄希庭主译的《人格手册:理论与研究》(第二版)

评述了最近由黄希庭教授主译的《人格手册：理论与研究》(第二版),该专著具有以下三个特点：结构合理,资料新颖;题材广泛,内容丰富;厚重翔实,观点公允。它的出版为国内的人格心理学研究提供了崭新的材料和全新的视角,有助于促进中国人格心理学研究的深入开展。