Borderline personality disorder,complex trauma,and problems with self and identity: A social-communicative approach

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a relatively highly prevalent psychiatric disorder that is associated with very high personal and socioeconomic costs. This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of the relationship between complex trauma and key features of BPD, with a focus on problems with self-coherence and self-continuity. We first review evidence for the high prevalence of complex trauma in BPD patients. This is followed by a discussion of emerging knowledge concerning the biobehavioral mechanisms involved in problems related to self and identity in BPD. We emphasize three biobehavioral systems that are affected by complex trauma and are centrally implicated in identify diffusion in BPD: the attachment system, mentalizing or social cognition, and the capacity for epistemic trust—that is, an openness to the reception of social communication that is personally relevant and of generalizable significance. We formulate a new approach to personality and severe personality disorders, and to problems with self and identity in these disorders, rooted in a social-communicative understanding of the foundations of selfhood. We also discuss how extant evidence-based treatments address the above-mentioned biobehavioral systems involved in identity diffusion in BPD and related disorders, and the supporting evidence. We close the paper with recommendations for future research.     

Comment on Susanna Siegel,The Rationality of Perception

In Susanna Siegel’s compelling presentation of the case for the rationality of perception, a “significant part of the constructive defense” is played by the idea that there are “inferential routes to perceptual experience” (Siegel 2017, p. 94). Inferences, after all, are epistemically evaluable and bear on the rational standing of their conclusions. She argues that an obstacle to accepting this idea is a “Reckoning Model” of inference, and shows by example that we recognize as inferences various familiar kinds of responses to information that do not fit this model. She offers a more general approach to the nature of inference that fits these examples and accommodates inferential routes to perceptual experience. I argue that Siegel needs to say more about the mental processes involved in such inferrings, and how it can be more than merely associative and yet still distinct from Reckoning. Fortunately, a psychologically- and conceptually-grounded distinction between model-free vs. model-based learning and guidance processes can provide a characterization that plays the role Siegel needs.     

The limits of perceptual phenomenal content

Philosophical Studies - There is an ongoing debate in philosophy of mind and epistemology about whether perceptual experience only represents those “thin” features of our environment...     

How prevalent is contextual information in research on school bullying?

Empirical articles on school bullying need to give contextual details of the study, including on participants (number, age, gender), the country in which data was gathered, and the year in which it was gathered. We argue that these are important aspects of information, and that country and year of data collection cannot be inferred unambiguously unless they are explicitly stated. We report an analysis of contextual information on a sample of 201 articles, from 1976 to 2015, on school bullying. The great majority of studies gave information on number and age of participants, and most on gender balance. Most also gave explicit information on the country in which data was gathered. However only about one quarter of articles gave information on the date (year) in which data was gathered. For those that did, the average gap from data gathering to publication was 4 years, with a range of 1 to 11 years. We argue that the date of data collection is an important historical aspect, as many societal changes, even over a period of a few years, can impact on prevalence and nature of bullying. We recommend that besides participant and country information, year of data collection is routinely given in empirical articles on school bullying.     

Why mental content is not like water: reconsidering the reductive claims of teleosemantics

Synthese - According to standard teleosemantics, intentional states are selectional states. This claim is put forward not as a conceptual analysis, but as a ‘theoretical...     

Relatedness needs and negative fantasies as the origins of obsessive thinking in romantic relationships

Motivation and Emotion - Surprisingly little experimental research has been conducted regarding the origins of obsessive thinking. Based on prior research on basic psychological needs (Sheldon and...     

Examples,practice problems,or both? Effects on motivation and learning in shorter and longer sequences

Research suggests some sequences of examples and problems (i.e., EE, EP) are more effective (higher test performance) and efficient (attained with equal/less mental effort) than others (PP, sometimes also PE). Recent findings suggest this is due to motivational variables (i.e., self-efficacy), but did not test this during the training phase. Moreover, prior research used only short task sequences. Therefore, we investigated effects on motivational variables, effectiveness, and efficiency in a short (Experiment 1; four learning tasks; n = 157) and longer task sequence (Experiment 2; eight learning tasks; n = 105). With short sequences, all example conditions were more effective, efficient, and motivating than PP. With longer sequences, all example conditions were more motivating and efficient than PP, but only EE was more effective than PP. Moreover, EE was most efficient during training, regardless of sequence length. These results suggest that example study (only) is more effective, efficient, and more motivating than PP.     

New Directions in the Conceptualization and Assessment of Personality—A Dynamic Systems Approach

In this paper, we demonstrate how an integrative approach to personality—one that combines within-person and between-person differences—can be achieved by drawing on the principles of dynamic systems theory. The dynamic systems perspective has the potential to reconcile both the stable and dynamic aspect of personality, it allows including different levels of analysis (i.e. traits and states), and it can account for regulatory mechanisms, as well as dynamic interactions between the elements of the system, and changes over time. While all of these features are obviously appealing, implementing a dynamic systems approach to personality is challenging. It requires new conceptual models, specific longitudinal research designs, and complex data analytical methods. In response to these issues, the first part of our paper discusses the Personality Dynamics model, a model that integrates the dynamic systems principles in a relatively straightforward way. Second, we review associated methodological and statistical tools that allow empirically testing the PersDyn model. Finally, the model and associated methodological and statistical tools are illustrated using an experience sampling methodology data set measuring Big Five personality states in 59 participants (N = 1916 repeated measurements). © 2020 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology     

From structuralism to Marxism (and Back?): Jan Mukařovský 1945–1963

Studies in East European Thought - The paper covers the last phase of Jan Muka?ovský’s career between 1945 and 1964 during which his scholarly outlook underwent several steep...