Old Wine in New Bottles? The Case of Self‐compassion and Neuroticism

Research on self‐compassion, which is defined as being understanding and kind to oneself when confronted with negative experiences, has produced an impressive number of articles in recent years. This research shows that individual differences in self‐compassion, as measured by the Self‐Compassion Scale (SCS), are positively related to life satisfaction, health and social functioning. However, a critical and systematic test of self‐compassion from a personality perspective has not yet conducted so far. In the present study (N = 576), we (i) tested the factor structure of the SCS, (ii) examined the distinctiveness of self‐compassion with regard to the five‐factor model of personality, focusing on neuroticism, and (iii) tested the incremental predictive power of self‐compassion beyond the five‐factor model in the context of life satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a two‐factor plus six facets solution of self‐compassion (a positive factor and a negative factor). Additional analyses revealed that the negative factor was redundant with facets of neuroticism (rs ≥ .85), whereas the positive factor had some unique variance left. However, neither the negative factor nor the positive factor could explain substantial incremental variance in life satisfaction beyond neuroticism. Recommendations for how to use the SCS are provided, and the future of research on self‐compassion is discussed. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Old or New? Evaluating the Old/New Scoring Method for Divergent Thinking Tasks

When people generate responses during a divergent thinking task, some responses are “old” (retrieved from memory) and some are “new” (generated on the spot). K.J. Gilhooly, E. Fioratou, S.H. Anthony, and V. Wynn (2007) suggested that old and new responses stem from different cognitive strategies and differ in key ways. The present research explored the old/new scoring method in a sample of 143 young adults. After completing unusual uses tasks, the participants classified each response as old or new. The creativity of each response was also rated by three judges and by the participants themselves. As in past research, “old” responses appeared significantly earlier in the task and were rated as significantly less creative by both the judges and the participants. Old and new responses, however, correlated equally strongly with predictors of creative ability, such as openness to experience and its facets. Overall, the old/new scoring approach appears promising as a way of illuminating the diverse mental strategies people use to generate ideas.     

Psychoanalysis and Family Systems Revisited: the Old,Old Story?

This paper explores some commonalities in the current state of psychoanalysis and family therapy in Britain. It argues that there have been social changes within Britain that have increased the popularity of the practices and concepts of psychotherapy and counselling. The methods and ideas of psychoanalysis seem to be the major influence in this process which is manifest, for the most part, within private therapy and counselling and in the universities. It appears that family therapists and the institutes of psychoanalysis act as if unaware of this pragmatic acceptance of psychoanalytic thinking. The two disciplines of family therapy and psychoanalysis remain organizationally and conceptually disassociated from each other despite the two subjects having considerable overlap, plying adjacent trades and using theoretical ideas which show considerable parallels. The paper proposes that postmodern thinking is, potentially, an evolving link between the two forms of thinking and therapy but that the theories of both psychoanalysis and family therapy require empirical evaluation.     

Old,New, Borrowed,Blue? The Emergence and Retention of Personal Meaning in Autobiographical Storytelling

Research on narrative identity has traditionally focused on how narrative characteristics are related to personality and well-being in adults. The present pair of studies with college students (Study 1, n= 62; Study 2, n= 68 couples) examined the dynamic conversational processes that might be part of constructing that identity. We examined the characteristics of personal meanings, operationalized as self-event connections, and the retention of those connections about important past events discussed between new romantic partners. Across the 2 studies, self-event connections that were positive and about stable aspects of the self were more likely to occur. Connections that were retained over 1 month were those that were shared by both teller and listener in an independent postconversation assessment. Discussion focuses on the processes that might contribute to the construction of narrative identity and the importance of positivity, stability, and shared connections in developing and maintaining narrative identity.     

The Old ‘New’ Dignitarianism

Res Publica - Developments in fields as diverse as biotechnology, animal cognition, and computer science have cast serious doubt on the common belief that human beings are unique and that only they...     

State Aid to Religiously Affiliated,Non-Public Schools: An Emerging Trend or Same Old Same Old?

This article reviews judicial attitudes with regard to the constitutionality of aid for children in religiously affiliated non-public schools. The first part highlights the extent to which the Supreme Court appears to have turned the corner in its willingness to examine the effective use of resources in regular education rather than just the acceptability of aid. The second section reviews how Congressional and regulatory activities have contributed to lower court decisions that continue to focus on the narrow issues of how much money can be spent and the appropriate locations for the delivery of services to children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools rather than the quality of education that they may be eligible to receive. Given the distinctions between the ways in which children in religiously affiliated non-public schools are treated based on whether they have disabilities, this article examines recent legal trends in considering whether there will be a new era in providing children who attend religiously affiliated non-public schools with the state aid that they deserve.     

The Indigenisation of Psychology: Birth of a New Science or Rekindling of an Old One?

Les décennies récentes ont été témoins de crises récurrentes au sein même de la tradition de psychologie expérimental Euro-Méso-Nord Américaine et, l'extérieur, des critiques lui ont été addressées. Les problèmes relèvent, d'une part, du manque de sensibilityé aux cultures et écosystèmes et, d'autre part, de la généralisation sans discrimination des résultats à travers des cadres comportementaux. Basées sur la construction d'une nouvelle science qui intègre les modeles comportementaux et culturels, des réponses sont proposées à ce qui constitue les attributs humains universels et idéosyncra-siques et les comportements sociaux. l'indigenisation de la psychologie en général et de l'ethnopsychologie mexicaine en particulier sont présentées comme exemples de solution à la stagnation du courant principal fondé de manière ethnocentrique.
Recent decades have witnessed recurring crises within, and criticism from outside, the Euro-Meso-North-American scientific psychological tradition. The problems are traceable to the lack of cultural and ecosystemic sensitivity on the one hand, and an attempt to indiscriminately generalise findings across behavioural settings, on the other. Based on the construction of a new science, which integrates the behavioural and cultural models, answers are offered to the question of what constitutes universal and idiosyncratic human attributes and social behaviours. The indigenisation of psychology in general and Mexican ethnopsychology in particular are offered as examples of solutions to the stagnation of the ethnocentrically based mainstream.     

Assessing Security Technology’s Impact: Old Tools for New Problems

The general idea developed in this paper from a sociological perspective is that some of the foundational categories on which the debate about privacy, security and technology rests are blurring. This process is a consequence of a blurring of physical and digital worlds. In order to define limits for legitimate use of intrusive digital technologies, one has to refer to binary distinctions such as private versus public, human versus technical, security versus insecurity to draw differences determining limits for the use of surveillance technologies. These distinctions developed in the physical world and are rooted in a cultural understanding of pre-digital culture. Attempts to capture the problems emerging with the implementation of security technologies using legal reasoning encounter a number of problems since law is by definition oriented backwards, adapting new developments to existing traditions, whereas the intrusion of new technologies in the physical world produces changes and creates fundamentally new problems.     

Crisis,Biology, Ecology: A New Starting-Point for Phenomenology?

The crisis of European sciences in Husserl’s late work diagnoses Galilean science as specifically and necessarily losing touch with the intuitive evidence that would legitimate it due to its reliance on a formal-mathematical conceptual apparatus. While the vast majority of Husserl’s late work was focussed on a critique of the formal-mathematical paradigm of the physical science of nature, at several points the possibility of biology as the exemplary science is raised to suggest that the lack of a reliance on formal-mathematical conceptual language would mean that a systemic crisis would not occur in such a case. This investigation considers the grounds for the expectation that biology would not engender a crisis, suggests that a paradigmatic role for ecology would more adequately address this expectation, and finally claims that the question of the relation between a specific exemplary science and transcendental phenomenology is not fully resolved even in this case.     

How Old Are These Bones? Putnam, Wittgenstein and Verification: Cora Diamond

Hilary Putnam has argued against philosophical theories which tie the content of truth-claims closely to the available methods of investigation and verification. Such theories, he argues, threaten our idea of human communication, which we take to be possible between people of different cultures and across periods of time during which methods of investigation change dramatically. Putnam rejects any reading of Wittgenstein which takes him to make a close tie between meaning and method of verification. What strands in Wittgenstein's thought appear to lend support to such a reading? Can we do justice to the role which method of verification does have for Wittgenstein while retaining our hold on the idea that communication between people is possible despite substantial differences in methods of verification and investigation?
Thus it is as if the proof did not determine the sense of the proposition proved; and yet as if it did determine it.
But isn't it like that with any verification of any proposition?     

How Old Are These Bones? Putnam, Wittgenstein and Verification: Steven Gerrard

Hilary Putnam introduced a puzzle about a citizen of the 17th century who speculates that some mysterious bones are over a million years old. I compare this situation, where the speculation is ahead of the method of carbon dating, with speculating about (1) a mathematical theorem before there is a proof, and (2) a riddle before there is an answer. All these cases are helpfully illuminated by Meno's paradox and, especially, Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. I draw some conclusions about Wittgenstein's methodology both in his philosophy of mathematics and his more general philosophy, focusing on the roles of local perspicuity and changing our way of looking at things.     

New systems: new behaviour?

Traditional methods of speed reduction such as traffic calming and enforcement tend to have only local effects. A global speed reducing measure, Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) which restricts drivers to the posted speed limit is being considered as an alternative. This paper reports a driving simulator study that evaluated the effects of such a system on driver behaviour. Measures of safety were taken when drivers drove with and without an ISA system, in addition to subjective measures of workload and acceptability. A number of changes in behaviour were noted, whereby drivers were more inclined to engage in riskier behaviour when the ISA system was operational. These changes were accompanied by reductions in maximum speeds, particularly in low speed limit areas and at speed limit transition points. It is suggested that the combinatory effects of these changes in behaviour have to be considered within the context of total network safety.     

Categorization Deficit in Old Age: Reality or Artefact?

When categorization behaviour is compared between young and elderly adults, results usually show a decrease in taxonomic choices along with an increase in thematic choices. This can be interpreted in two ways: a decline in the ability to perceive and use taxonomic relations, or a modification of conceptual preferences with aging related to a bias stemming from material which favours young adults. We evaluated the second hypothesis by studying whether the salience of categorical associations could explain the differences generally observed between young and elderly adults. This hypothesis was tested on 25 young subjects (M = 45.3 years, SD =5.6 years) and 30 elderly subjects (M = 71.5 years, SD = 7.1 years) using a matching task: individual judgments were used to build triads in which a target was presented along with a strong and a weak associate. In line with our hypothesis, both age groups were influenced by associative strength and type of relation in the same way. Results are interpreted with Baltes’s [1987, Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626] model.     

Did Tom Kuhn actually Meet Tom Bayes?

Wesley Salmon and John Earman have presented influential Bayesian reconstructions of Thomas Kuhn’s account of theory-change. In this paper I argue that all attempts to give a Bayesian reading of Kuhn’s philosophy of science are fundamentally misguided due to the fact that Bayesian confirmation theory is in fact inconsistent with Kuhn’s account. The reasons for this inconsistency are traced to the role the concept of incommensurability plays with reference to the ‘observational vocabulary’ within Kuhn’s picture of scientific theories. The upshot of the discussion is that it is impossible to integrate both Kuhn’s claims and Bayesianism within a coherent account of theory-change.

Pathways into retirement: Entry or exit?

This qualitative interview study set out to gauge older citizens' perceptions of reasons for willingly entering retirement, or, alternatively, resisting it, by examining the retrospective views of 45 adults (aged 62 to 94 years) in Norway who had already crossed the retirement threshold. Interviews were taped, transcribed and analysed (separately) by the two authors. Findings, extrapolated from the interview data, demonstrated an array of interacting factors influencing individual pathways into retirement and adjustments to various retired life‐styles. Furthermore, three broad themes were identified; namely, ‘there is life beyond work’; ‘work as a life‐style'; and ‘there is not much left to live for’ with individually different routes within these. Importantly, it became clear that these pathways were initiated long before retirement. Given the range of influencing factors and of the psychosocial resources shown by the participants, it was proposed that future research should focus more innovatively on interactive, ecological approaches with a longer time‐span perspective.