Therapeutic Implications of Religious-Related Emotional Abuse

Religion can play a positive role in preventing all types of abuse. Consequently, it is often difficult to believe that religion or a particular manner of religious awareness can also be conducive to the degradation and humiliation of individuals, and that it can be maneuvered to justify abusive behavior. In this article we discuss the emotional repercussions of religious-related abuse in the family, an aspect that is rarely documented in the field of psychotherapy, but has many negative consequences. Religious-oriented emotional abuse is traceable to several levels of human functioning: the individual's internal level of experiencing themselves, the interpersonal and systemic levels, where the individual enters relationships, as well as within the framework of the individual's relationship with God.     

The ground is dominant in infants’ perception of relative distance

When making relative distance judgments, adults attend to information provided by the ground surface and generally ignore information provided by ceiling surfaces. In the present study, we asked whether this ground dominance effect is present in infancy. Groups of 5- and 7-month-old infants viewed a display depicting textured ground and ceiling surfaces. Two toys, which were attached to vertical rods, were affixed to the display. The toys/rods were positioned so that one toy was specified as being nearer by the ground surface but farther away by the ceiling surface, while the other toy was specified as being farther away by the ground surface but nearer by the ceiling surface. Under monocular viewing conditions, the infants in both age groups reached preferentially for the toy that was specified as being nearer by the ground surface. This effect was significantly stronger than that observed under binocular viewing conditions. The findings indicate that the infants responded to the distance information provided by the ground surface to a greater extent than to information provided by the ceiling.     

Blood flow velocity changes in anterior cerebral arteries during cognitive tasks performance

Objective

Transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) enables monitoring of blood flow velocities (BFVs) in basal cerebral arteries during different cognitive tasks performance with great temporal resolution. So far, BFVs changes during mental activity were monitored primarily in middle cerebral arteries (MCAs) and little is known about these changes in anterior cerebral arteries (ACAs).

Aim

To determine the effect of different cognitive tasks performance on BFV changes and hemispheric dominance in ACAs and to assess the most suitable activation test for monitoring of BFV changes in ACAs.

Methods

Fourteen right-handed, healthy subjects aged 20–26 were included in the study. BFVs in both ACAs were recorded simultaneously during performance of cognitive tasks designed to activate frontal lobes: phonemic verbal fluency test (pVFT), Stroop tests and Trail Making Tests (TMTs).

Results

A statistically significant BFV increase was recorded in both ACAs during performance of all cognitive tasks. Statistically significant right ACA dominance was found during performance of pVFT and TMTB. The most significant BFV increase was obtained during performance of TMTB.

Conclusion

Our result addressed cognitive tests with great activation potential for monitoring of ACAs that might be used in distinguishing of healthy individuals and patients with neurovascular or neurodegenerative diseases.     

Existential Social Theory After the Poststructuralist and Communication Turns

Thomas Flynn's work on Sartre and Foucault, the first of a two-volume project, offers a unique opportunity for examining an existential theory of history. It occasions rethinking existential-social categories from the vantage point of the poststructuralist turn. And it contributes to developing existential variants of critical theory. The following questions guide me in each of the three above areas. First, how is human history intelligible, given not only our finite sense of ourselves but also claims that we have reached the end of history? Second, with the poststructuralist eclipse of dialectics, can we render existential categories in social terms and vice versa? Third, critics decry grand theorizing even in fallibilist reason, e.g., of Habermas, while others are worried by the normative deficits of poststructuralist nominalism, e.g., of Foucault. Can existential variants of critical social theory, anticipated before Sartre by Marcuse, split the difference?     

What's wrong with promising to try?

There is often something wrong with merely promising to try to φ. In this article I explain what is wrong with such promises. I argue that a promise to try to φ, when it is entirely up to us to φ, is always wrong because it hides a possible choice under the veil of our susceptibility to circumstances beyond our control. I furthermore argue that this is often also the case when matters are not entirely up to us. Finally, I contend that sometimes the promise to try places undue burdens on the promisee.     

把言情绪、共话健康——全国第五届情绪与健康心理学学术研讨会综述

<正>2019年4月26～28日,全国第五届情绪与健康心理学学术研讨会在信阳师范学院隆重召开。本次会议由中国心理学会情绪与健康心理学专业委员会主办,信阳师范学院、河南省心理学会、深圳市心理学会承办。中国心理学会前理事长、中科院心理所所长傅小兰,中国心理学会副理事长、中国心理学会情绪与健康心理学专业委员会主任李红,河南省心理学会理事长、河南师范大学党委书记赵国祥,中国心理学会秘书长、首都师范大学教授罗劲,深圳大学教授罗跃嘉,华东师范大学教授周永     

求真理去服务得自由——郭永玉教授专访

2020年最后一天,郭永玉教授应《心理新青年》网络平台的邀请,接受了两个小时的访谈。他介绍了自己的求学经历,强调了八十年代的思想解放运动的影响,回顾了他先后在华中师大、南京师大、武汉大学和在国外的求学过程,认为心理学史、人格心理学和社会心理学虽然是其所涉及的看上去跨度很大的三个学科,但有一种线索贯穿始终,那就是人性问题。郭教授还谈到人格心理学的分化与整合问题,结合社会阶层研究讨论了心理学促进社会治理的途径,强调了心理学的社会科学属性和使命,认为既要重视学术服务社会特别是促进国家的现代化,又要保持学术研究的独立性。最后,他对青年一代学者提出了治学的建议,希望青年学人要有人文社会科学的大格局,做出无愧于时代要求和自我理想的新贡献。访谈全文经《心理新青年》授权《心理学探新》发表,特向《心理新青年》编辑部的所有同事们表示感谢。     

“Who said it?” How contextual information influences perceived profundity of meaningful quotes and pseudo-profound bullshit

Psychological research on pseudo-profound bullshit—randomly assembled buzz words plugged into a syntactic structure—has only recently begun. Most such research has focused on dispositional traits, such as thinking styles or political orientation. However, none has investigated contextual factors. In two studies, we introduce a new paradigm by investigating the contextual effect on pseudo-profound bullshit and meaningful quotes. In Study 1, all participants rated the profundity of statements in three contexts: (a) isolated, (b) as allegedly said by a famous author, or (c) within a vignette (short story). Study 2 serves as a conceptual replication in which participants rated statements in only one of three contexts. Overall, our results demonstrate that although contextual information such as author's name increases the perceived profundity of bullshit, it has an inconsistent effect on meaningful quotes. The present study helps to better understand the bullshit receptivity while offering a new line of research.