Philosophy of Education in a Poor Historical Moment: A Personal Account

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.     

Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Motivational Interviewing: Conceptual Convergence,Compatibility, and Strategies for Integration

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and motivational interviewing (MI) are two widely used and efficacious psychosocial interventions. An immense and growing number of studies examine DBT, MI, or adaptations of these approaches across diverse treatment contexts and across various clinical populations. Because DBT and MI are in high demand, it is probable that trainees and established practitioners will encounter one or both treatments over the course of their careers. Although MI and DBT initially evolved in distinct contexts for different populations, these approaches share a number of common fundamental principles. Each provides distinct and complementary strategies for enhancing clients’ motivation and ability to change. For some, an integrative or sequenced application of MI and DBT may enhance client care. The present article highlights areas of divergence, convergence, and opportunities for integration, and offers practical tips for applying DBT and MI in conjunction.     

Nonmonetary and nonreciprocal freecycling: Motivations for participating in online alternative giving communities

This research examines consumers' participation in a nonmonetary, nonreciprocal form of online consumer exchange wherein consumers may decide to give only, receive only, or both give and receive. Given the lack of financial incentives or relational norms that would traditionally drive participation in this societally beneficial consumption activity for which we advance the term alternative giving, this research examines consumers' participation motivations. Are consumers, as prior research suggests, motivated to participate in alternative giving activities on the basis of prosocial motives or for other reasons? Through a content analysis of the online Freecycle Network, we found that participation is driven primarily by fundamental consumer needs and wants, though other prosocial, less materialistic factors are also drivers. Our findings also identify an inconsistency in product categories between what givers offer and what receivers seek, suggesting that supply–demand imbalances can emerge within alternative giving communities.     

Action-based and vision-based selection of input: Two sources of control

In the first part of this paper we review evidence suggesting that there exists a mechanism that selects input on the basis of its similarity to the required action. This response-based input selection differs from the more established space- and object-based input selection in that it is not constrained by the structure of the input. Our evidence suggests that the two-choice Stroop effect is caused by this response-based selection mechanism. By contrast, it is known that the flanker effect is determined by the space- and object- based selection mechanisms. We explore whether the conflict resolution of the Stroop and flanker tasks is different as well by embedding these two tasks in a PRP (Psychological Refractory Period) paradigm. We show that the Stroop and the PRP effects are additive whereas the flanker and the PRP effects are underadditive, suggesting that the processes in charge of the conflict resolution in the Stroop and the flanker tasks are indeed different. We discuss possible reasons for this difference, and discuss possible ways in which the response-based mechanism can be implemented in information processing models.