A new kind of friendship - An essay on Philip Pullman's The Subtle Knife

This paper discusses the second volume of Pullman's trilogy in which the quests of the two children to establish the nature of their link to parental objects intersect across time and space. They enter an imaginary world on their journey, and we observe their relationship develop into one of friendship and psychological interdependence. There is a shift from dominant persecutory anxieties towards depressive concern, alongside an increasing capacity to differentiate between hubris and courage, and to depend on the protection and love of surrogate parental figures. Cet article explore le deuxième tome de la trilogie de P. Pullman, dans lequel il décrit l'entrecroisement dans le temps et dans l'espace de la quête menée par chacun des deux enfants pour comprendre la nature de sa relation à ses objets parentaux. Au cours de leur voyage, ils entrent dans un monde imaginaire; nous voyons comment leur relation se mue en amitié et en dépendance psychologique réciproque. Les angoisses persécutrices, auparavant prédominantes, se transforment en souci dépressif pour l'autre; en méme temps, ayant acquis une capacité de plus en plus affinée à distinguer entre orgueil prétentieux et courage véritable, ils se montrent davantage aptes à s'en remettre à la protection et à l'amour de figures parentales de substitution. Questo articolo discute il secondo volume della trilogia di Pullman, nel quale la ricerca di due bambini per scoprire la natura del loro legame con le figure genitoriali si interseca nel tempo e nello spazio. Essi entrano in un mondo immaginario nel loro viaggio e noi osserviamo lo svilupparsi della loro relazione di amicizia e interdipendenza psicologica. Si vede uno spostamento dalle ansie persecutorie dominanti verso un tipo di preoccupazione depressiva, e allo stesso tempo una crescente capacita' di differenziare l'arroganza dal coraggio ed essere dipendenti dalla protezione e amore di figure parentali sostitutive. Dieser Artikel diskutiert den zweiten Band der Pullman Trilogie, in der die Suche der zwei Kinder, die Art ihrer Verbindung zu elterlichen Objekten zu etablieren, sich über Zeit und Raum erstreckt. Sie betreten auf ihrer Reise eine imaginäre Welt und wir beobachten, wie sich ihre Beziehung zu der einer Freundschaft und psychologischen gegenseitigen Abhängigkeit entwickelt. Es findet eine Veränderung von den dominierenden Verfolgungsängsten zu depressiven Sorgen statt, gleichzeitig mit einer wachsenden Fähigkeit, zwischen Anmassung und Mut zu unterscheiden und vom Schutz und der Liebe von Ersatzelternfiguren abzuhängen.     

The General Confidence Scale: Coping With Environmental Uncertainty and Threat

We investigated general confidence as a psychological buffer for coping with environmental uncertainty and threat. In Study 1, a new scale to measure general confidence was developed and cross‐validated with different samples. Study 2 examined general confidence as a moderator of the influence of environmental stress on individual strains. Two groups of participants were presented with photographs either of terrorist attacks or of neutral scenes. We found a significant interaction between presented scenes and general confidence. Study 3 examined the effect of general confidence on acceptance of mobile phone stations while controlling for relevant variables. The results showed good incremental validity for the General Confidence Scale over related personality and social psychological constructs.     

Creative Self‐Efficacy and Innovative Behavior in a Service Setting: Optimism as a Moderator

Creativity research on the personality approach has focused on the relationship between individual attributes and innovative behavior. However, few studies have empirically examined the effects of positive psychological traits on innovative behavior in an organizational setting. This study examines the relationships among creative self‐efficacy, optimism, and innovative behavior as well as the moderating effect of optimism. Longitudinal data across two periods were collected from 120 spa employees of a diet and beauty salon company in Taiwan. After controlling for the effects of job tenure and the Big Five personality traits, this study found that employees with a high level of creative self‐efficacy demonstrate a high level of innovative behavior at work, and optimism does not have a direct effect on employees' innovative behavior, but it does play a moderating role. When employees' creative self‐efficacy is high, those with greater optimism exhibit greater innovative behavior at work. Toward the end, this paper offers suggestions for future research and discusses the practical implications of this study.     

How to be a Normative Expressivist1

Abstract. Expressivism can make space for normative objectivity by treating normative stances as pro or con attitudes that can be correct or incorrect. And it can answer the logical challenges that bedevil it by treating a simple normative assertion not merely as an expression of a normative stance, but as an expression of the endorsement of a proposition that is true if and only if that normative stance is correct. Although this position has superficial similarities to normative realism, it does full justice to the core expressivist thesis that, at bottom, a normative assertion expresses a normative stance rather than a factual belief.     

Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions

Vernat, J.-P. & Gordon, M. S. (2010). Indirect interception actions by blind and visually impaired perceivers: Echolocation for interceptive actions. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 75–83.
This research examined the acoustic information used to support interceptive actions by the blind. Congenitally blind and severely visually impaired participants (all wearing an opaque, black eye-mask) were asked to listen to a target ball rolling down a track. In response, participants rolled their own ball along a perpendicular path to intercept the target. To better understand what information was used the echoic conditions and rolling dynamics of the target were varied across test sessions. In addition the rolling speed of the target and the distance of the participant from the target were varied across trials. Results demonstrated that participants tended to perform most accurately at moderate speeds and distances, overestimating the target's arrival at the fastest speed, and underestimating it at the slowest speed. However, changes to the target's dynamics, that is, the amount of deceleration it underwent on approach, did not strongly influence performance. Echoic conditions were found to affect performance, as participants were slightly more accurate in conditions with faster, higher-intensity echoes. Based on these results blind individuals in this research seemed to be using spatial and temporal cues to coordinate their interceptive actions.     

False Memories,Negative Affects,and Psychic Reality: The Role of Extra‐Clinical Data in Psychoanalysis1

Psychoanalysis as a treatment originated in the idea that neurosis is related to the ways in which individual psychic reality departs from actuality. Psychic reality includes memories, beliefs and their associated affects and fantasies connected with an individual's experience of the inner and outer world. The psychoanalytic determination of what meaningful memories or beliefs are inaccurate, distorted or false ordinarily relies upon principles of intra‐clinical validation. By itself, however, intra‐clinical validation is subject to limitations and pitfalls that conviction alone about what is actual cannot circumvent. Despite this fact, there are remarkably few analytic case reports demonstrating false or signifi cantly distorted memories through the use of data obtained from outside the consulting room. This paucity of reports may be related, at least in part, to the belief that the use of extra‐clinical data is essentially unanalytic or supports resistance. Based on the views that (a) psychic reality cannot be regarded as exclusively subjective or objective but is inherently both; and that (b) a goal of analysis is to achieve a different, acceptable and more accurate view of reality, the authors report a clinical case involving a confi rmably false pivotal memory and its associated negative affects. They discuss theoretical and technical considerations in utilizing extra‐clinical data during the treatment process.