Meditation and the cultivation of virtue

In recent decades, social psychology has produced an expansive array of studies wherein introducing a seemingly morally innocuous feature into the situation a subject inhabits often yields morally questionable, dubious, or even appalling behavior. Several fascinating lines of philosophical enquiry issue from this research, but the most pragmatically salient question concerns how we ought most effectively to develop and maintain the virtues so that such putatively morally problematic behavior is less likely to occur. In this paper, I examine four empirically embedded accounts of virtue cultivation: Hagop Sarkissian’s social signaling, Mark Alfano’s virtue labeling, Nancy Snow’s self-punishment, and Peter Railton’s implementation intentions. But none of these accounts of virtue cultivation provides adequate resources for regulating our affective states, whose attention-constricting and behavior-priming functional roles are likely at the root of much of our less than virtuous behavior. Instead, I defend an account of virtue cultivation that proceeds via meditation, which can help us to identify and regulate our emotions and moods. Further, meditation enables us to develop the attentional focus, emotional intelligence, and sense of social connection that ground (many of) the virtues and, thus, our virtuous behavior.     

A Contextual Account of Character Traits

Character traits have several vital functions. They should enable us to assess others morally, inform us of others’ behavioral tendencies, and accurately explain and predict others’ behavior. But traits of character, as they have traditionally been understood, cannot adequately serve these purposes. For character traits are traditionally thought to be context-insensitive. The Contextual Account of Character Traits, which I here develop and defend, posits traits that are context-sensitive. Context-sensitive character traits are more receptive to the complexity of human psychology and behavior and, hence, they not only adequately, but excellently, satisfy their theoretic and pragmatic functions.     

Cerebral lateralization of visual stimulus recognition in stutterers and fluent speakers

Cerebral lateralization of stutterers and nonstutterers was assessed in terms of choice reaction times to stimuli presented to either the left or right visual hemifield on letter recognition and figure recognition tasks. Reaction times on both tasks were determined before and after a behavioral speech therapy program. Stutterers demonstrated a significant reduction in mean reaction times in the letter recognition task over the course of the therapy program. This change differed significantly from that obtained from stutterers in the figure recognition task. The stutterers' responses were in contrast to the responses of the nonstutterers, who showed no reduction in mean reaction times for the letter or figure recognition tasks. The results were discussed in terms of alterations in aspects of central nervous system processing as a result of participation in the behavioral speech therapy.     

Parasite stress, ethnocentrism, and life history strategy

Fincher & Thornhill (F&T) present a compelling argument that parasite stress underlies certain cultural practices promoting assortative sociality. However, we suggest that the theoretical framework proposed is limited in several ways, and that life history theory provides a more explanatory and inclusive framework, making more specific predictions about the trade-offs faced by organisms in the allocation of bioenergetic and material resources.     

Agreement Between Descriptive and Experimental Analyses of Behavior under Naturalistic Test Conditions

We compared the results of a contingency space analysis (CSA) of behavior-consequence recordings to the results of functional analysis (FA) test conditions involving antecedent stimuli and verbal statements that both differed from and mimicked those in the natural environment. Three preschool children with autism spectrum disorder participated. During Phase I, we identified teacher-delivered consequences that were contingent on problem behavior from observational data. During Phase II, each child participated in FA test conditions conducted by their teacher or a same-sex experimenter in an ABA reversal design. Two Experimenter FA conditions were identical to the Teacher FA, with an additional condition involving a different task, demands, and verbal statements. Teacher FAs revealed a clear function for problem behavior for two children, whereas the Experimenter FA was undifferentiated. The reverse pattern was observed for the third child. Results of the CSAs were consistent with the Teacher FAs for two children. Implications for generalizing the outcomes of analog FA test conditions are discussed.     

Meditation and the scope of mental action

While philosophers of mind have devoted abundant time and attention to questions of content and consciousness, philosophical questions about the nature and scope of mental action have been relatively neglected. Galen Strawson’s account of mental action, the most well developed extant account, holds that cognitive mental action consists in triggering the delivery of content to one’s field of consciousness. However, Strawson fails to recognize several distinct types of mental action that might not reduce to triggering content delivery. In this article, we argue that meditation provides a useful model for understanding a wider range of types of mental action than heretofore recognized. Conclusions yielded by two distinct bodies of current psychological research on meditation and cognition, and meditation and introspection, buttress meditation’s suitability for this role.